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THE 

CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

@xamt»wtt anJJ Slpprcctateti : 

AN ESSAY 

ON THE 

SCOTTISH AND IRISH POEMS 

PUBLISHED UNDER THAT NAME; 

IN WHICH 

THE QUESTION OF THEIR GENUINENESS AND HISTORICAL 
CREDIT IS FREELY DISCUSSED : 

TOGETHER WITH 

SOME CURIOUS PARTICULARS 

RELATIVE TO THE 

STRUCTURE AND STATE OF POETRY IN THE CELTIC 
DIALECTS OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 



By the Rev. EDWARD DA VIES, F. R. S.L., 

CHANCELLOR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE IN BRECON, 
AND RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S IN THE GROVE, AND BISHOPSTON. 



Nothing extenuate, 



" Nor set down aught in malice." 

Shakspeare. 



Printed for the Author, by H. Griffith, 17, Wind-street : 

AND SOLD BY LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER-ROW, 

LONDON. 



1825. 



% 



<& 



^ 






-> 



^ 



TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, 

THOMAS BURGESS, D. D. 

LORD BISHIP OF ST. DAVID'S, PRESIDENT; 



THE VICE-PRESIDENTS AND COUNCIL 
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, 

THIS VOLUME, 

WITH THE TRUEST SENTIMENTS OF 
GRATITUDE AND RESPECT, 
IS SUBMISSIVELY INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED, 
BV THEIR MUCH OBLIGED, 

AND MOST HUMBLE SERVANT, 

THE AUTHOR 




AD VER T1SEMENT. 



.During the eighteen or twenty years which have 
elapsed since this Essay was written, the ardour 
of public debate upon the poems of Ossian has, 
indeed, considerably subsided : yet the Author can- 
not regard this as a sufficient reason why his tract 
should be suppressed, or be deemed wholly out of 
season. 

The question may pause, but it is not decided. 
A learned and respectable body of our Northern 
neighbours still maintain the cause of their na- 
tional Bard. Many of their arguments remain 
unanswered, and Ossian is confidently quoted as 
historical authority. 

The work, moreover, is not limited to this simple 
question. It embraces various elucidations of the 
general state and progress of poetry in the Galic 



VI. ADVERTISEMENT. 

dialects of Scotland and Ireland. The subject may 
therefore be considered as forming an essential 
link in the chain of Celtic Antiquities. 

It is conceived that it may not only prove inter- 
esting to those Cambro- Britons who are at this 
time rummaging the old stores of a sister dialect, 
but that it will present them with some useful hints, 
and salutary cautions. 

For these and the like reasons, the Essay has 
been printed. About two hundred copies only of 
this edition are offered to the public at large, — the 
remainder being reserved for private distribution. 
To the learned members of the Highland Society 
the author would respectfully observe — That he has 
shewn no disposition to detract from the intrinsic 
merit of their national poetry. Upon the subject 
of its antiquity alone, and its historical importance, 
he has candidly declared an opinion, which arose, 
not out of prejudice but from probable grounds. 
If it can be shewn that his grounds are fallacious, 
he will with equal candour, retract an error, and 
subscribe to their well chosen motto — 

MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PRCEVALEBIT. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 



EXAMINED AND APPRECIATED 



Being an Essay to ascertain, whether the poems ascribed to the 
Caledonian Bard, are to be regarded as genuine remains of 
antiquity, and authentic historical documents, or merely as works 
of modem invention. 



Sect. I. On the internal marks of recent composition, in the poems 
published by Mr. Macpherson, under the name of Ossian. 

Sect. II. On the alterations which Mr. Macpherson appears to have 
made, in the Galic poems, which he is acknowledged to have collected ; with 
remarks upon the arguments which have been adduced, in support of the 
genuineness of those poems. 

Sect. III. On the origin of the Galic poems, with some conjectures, 
relative to the principal hero whom they celebrate. 

Sect. IV. On the principles of versification in the Galic poems ascribed 
to Ossian. 

Sect. V. — first additional. On the general evidence disclosed in 
those volumes which contain the original Galic. 

Sect. VI.— second Additional. On the Galic text of the poems 
ascribed to Ossian. 



SECTION I. 

On the internal marks of recent composition^ in the poems published by JH/r, 
Macpherson, under the name of Ossian, 



Introduction to the subject. — The editor's account of his originals unsatis- 
factory. — The anachronisms, upon the face of the poems, create a suspicion 
of their character — this suspicion confirmed — by the relation of fabulous 
events — by the description of the armour, characters, manners, and senti- 
ments of the heroes— by the introduction of palpable fiction — by the ascribing 
of the same romantic adventures to a variety of characters— by the art of 
the poet, which does not accord with the age assigned to Ossian — by the 
representation of extemporaneous composition— by Ossian's personal dis- 
qualifications—and, by the want of adequate means for the preservation 
of such poems. Recapitulation of particulars, concluding with a general 
acknowledgment, that certain Galic poems were collected by Mr. Mac- 
pherson. 



THE 



CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 



The present Essay has, in its subject, a retro- 
spect to the year 1761, a new sera in Celtic poetry, 
when Mr. Macpherson surprised the learned world 
with the first publication of his Fingal, a regular 
Epic poem, in six books. This extraordinary 
work was announced as a literal translation from 
the Galic of Ossian, a Royal Caledonian Bard, who 
flourished in the third century of the Christian sera, 
and lived to the commencement of the fourth. At 
a moderate interval, Fingal was followed by a 
considerable collection of other poems, literally 
translated from the same author. These pieces 
would have done credit to a writer of any age or 
country. The history of their original production, 
and the novelty of their style, attracted curiosity, 
whilst their intrinsic merit secured to them a favour- 
able reception from the public. Immediately after 
the appearance of these works of Ossian, the anti- 
quaries of Caledonia, unknown before, and silent 



7 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

as the Bard who had celebrated their illustrious 
ancestors, began to assume a commanding tone. 
Ossian enjoyed his fame ; but his friends were not 
satisfied in contemplating their favourite Bard, who 
was now gliding down the stream of renown, at the 
head of his peaceful brethren of Ireland and Wales : 
the stream must be wholly consecrated to the bark 
of Selma.* 

What provocation the Irish had given, any farther 
than a single advertisement in a newspaper, | and 
that without signature, I have not been able to learn ; 
but throughout the notes and dissertations, with 
which Mr. Macpherson illustrated his publications, 
he has attacked them with no small degree of 
apparent resentment. As for the Welsh, notwith- 
standing their proverbial irascibility of temper, they 
received the new claimant of fame, with the utmost 
complacency and good humour, and with a humility 
which, it might have been expected, would have 
blunted the edge of jealousy.— -Was Ossian excel- 
lent? They boasted of nothing that could rival his 
merit. — Was he as old as the third century? — They 
could produce nothing of a date earlier than the 
fifth or sixth. — From this period, they had treasured 
up some relics of their ancestors, such as they 



* Ossian's Palace, in the Western Highlands. 

t In Faulkener's Dublin Journal, 1st Dec. 1761, Mr. Macpherson says, 
this was two weeks before his first publication appeared in London.*-- Diss. 
on the Poems of Ossian. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, S 

were. These they cherished as family curiosities; 
but they admired Ossian. 

The Welsh Bards, however, obscure and rustic as 
they are acknowledged to be, approached too near 
the throne of the Royal Caledonian. Mr. Macpher- 
son pushes them off with a contemptuous remark, 
that he could soon read them and translate, if they 
had any thing worth translating. Nor were these 
Bards sufficiently humbled by such a repulse. Their 
very existence gave offence to the friends of Ossiaii, 
and to his enemies. They had unfortunately writ- 
ten in rhyme. A critic who had taken upon him 
the conducting of literary opinion, discovers that 
rhyme was unknown in Europe, till some centuries 
after the age of Taliesin : and, by extorting a new 
meaning from an old passage in Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, the same Aristarchus produces a direct 
proof, that rhyme was not generally used by the 
ancient Welsh Bards.* 

Upon this perverted authority, a grave historian 
of North Britain, but no friend of Ossian, pro- 
nounces our supposed ancient poems to be modern 
forgeries, t 

Thus the old Cambro- British Bards are attacked, 
not only by the friends, but also by the adversaries 

* See this subject ably discussed, the practice of the Bards defended, and 
Giraldus reconciled to their cause, in Mr. Turner's Vindication, p. 259, &c. 

t " In Welsh poetry, it (rhyme) was unknown to Giraldus Cambrensis, in 
" the twelfth Century, a sufficient proof that the rhymes of Taliesin, and the 
" Welsh Bards, are a modern forgery."— Mr. Laing's Diss, on Ossian'* 
Poems, annexed to his Hist. v. ii. p. 43S. 



9 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of Ossian, who muster pretty strongly in the field 
of letters. The former party find them trivial, 
upon comparison ; and the latter, regarding Ossian 
as an arrant impostor, reject the Cambrian poems 
unexamined, concluding that they stand exactly 
upon the same footing. 

The question of the genuineness of the ancient 
British rhymes, I shall entirely trust to the Vindica- 
tion of the learned| and ingenious author of the 
Anglo-Saxon History : and, had the matter rested 
in a mere debate of competition, I should not have 
meddled in it at all. It is a subject of little import- 
ance to the literary world, whether the Celt of Cale- 
donia, of Ireland, ,or of Wales, can exhibit the best 
and the oldest national poems. But Ossian is 
elevated into the rank of an authentic historian, the 
first that exists, amongst the natives of the British 
Islands, and even, of the north of Europe. By his 
sole aid Mr. Macpherson overturns the long esta- 
blished account of the colonization of Britain and 
Ireland. He ascertains a multitude of Caledonian 
victories, in Scandinavia, and Denmark, during the 
second and third centuries, and of Scandinavian 
descents upon the Islands of Britain, in the same 
early ages. The incidents of Ossian, according to 
this writer's decision, are authentic and historical — 
his descriptions paint the genuine manners and 
customs of the ancient inhabitants of these king- 
doms, and his Muse, at this day, pronounces their 
uncorrupted language. In short, Ossian is authen- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 10 

tic throughout ; and, consequently, all that differs 
from him is debased,' erroneous, and spurious.* 
Nor have these ideas been propagated by the editor 
of Ossian alone. For upwards of forty years, they 
have obtruded themselves upon our notice, in num- 
berless histories, dissertations, philosophical essays, 
sketches, reviews, magazines, &c. &c. 

Before an author, who has but just emerged from 
obscurity, be admitted as sole evidence, in matters 
of historical moment ; before he be allowed to sub- 
stantiate facts, in the face of better known docu- 
ments ; it is but fair that his character should be 
examined, and his credentials duly appreciated. 
The province which Ossian has assumed, renders 
him, therefore, an object of sufficient importance to 
justify the publication of a short essay, for the 
purpose of elucidating his real pretensions. This 
subject might have been committed to more able 
hands ; but the attention I have bestowed upon 
kindred topics, may, in some measure, have qualified 
me for the task, which it has been my aim to execute 
fairly. 

In the pursuit of this enquiry, candour demands 
that we should, first of all, consider the editor's 
statement of his authorities for the originals of 
Ossian, and of the part which he himself supported, 
in producing this work to the public. Mr. Mac- 



* See Mr. Macpherson's notes at large, and his Dissertation upon the 
Poems of Ossian, 






11 THE CLAIMS OF 08 81 AX* 

pherson had a favourable opportunity to offer some- 
thing satisfactory upon this head. His Fingal first 
appeared about the close of the year 1761 ; and in 
1773, he published a revised edition of the poems, 
notes, and dissertations ; put a finishing hand to 
them, and resigned them for ever to their fate. So 
novel had the works of the Caledonian Ossian ap- 
peared to the public, and so different from what 
might have been expected from a Celtic Bard of the 
third or fourth century, that, during the intervening 
eleven years, many doubts had been suggested, as 
to their genuineness. x Some writer of great emi- 
nence maintained, that they were the original 
compositions of Mr. Macpherson himself, whilst 
others supposed them to be imitations of ancient 
Irish poems. 

In thisjinal edition, it might have been expected, 
that Mr. Macpherson would have resolved these 
doubts, and overruled these suggestions, by giving 
some satisfactory and particular account of his 
originals, whether found in writing, or collected from 
oral traditions; and, by producing a few specimens 
of the genuine composition of his author. He 
might have regarded the objection of his adversa- 
ries as useful hints to fortify the weaker parts of 
his national cause. He did not avail himself of this 
opportunity. On the contrary, he has here dropped 
some hints of his own, which must have had a direct 
tendency to confirm the scepticism of the public. In 
his short preface, he styles himself; indifferently,, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 12 

the author, the writer, and the translator. " With- 
" out encreasing his genius, the author may have 
tc improved his language in the eleven years that 
" the following poems have been in the hands of the 
u public. Errors in diction might have been com- 
" mitted at twenty- four, which the experience of 
" a riper age may remove; and some exuberances 
" in imagery mag he restrained with advantage, by 
" a degree of judgment, acquired in the progress of 
V time." 

Is not this the language of a man who speaks of 
his own original compositions ? Such passages more 
than half admit the truth of the opinion, which pro- 
nounces Mr. Macpherson the real author of the 
poems in question. And what are we to understand 
by the exuberances in imagery which a literal prose 
translator had to restrain ? The imagery ought to 
be, precisely, that of his author. The literal tran- 
slator could have had no choice. He was bound to 
follow his original. But if the translator of Ossian, 
in hh first edition, assumed a liberty which did not 
belong to him, what security has he given for his 
fidelity in the second? In his dissertation upon 
Ossian, Mr. Macpherson remarks, — " Since the pub- 
<c lication of these poems, many insinuations have 
(i been made, and doubts, concerning their authen- 
" ticity. Whether these suspicions are suggested by 
u prejudice, or are only the effects of malice, I neither 
" know nor care. Those who have doubted my 
f{ veracity have paid a compliment to my genius ,' 



13 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" and were even the allegation true, my self-denial 
* might have atoned for my fault* Without vanity, 
" I say it, I think I could write tolerable poetry ; and 
" I assure my antagonists that I would not translate 
" what I could not imitate" 

In this passage, the author seems to feel something 
of the proud disdain of wounded honour. A gentle- 
man's veracity ought not, certainly, to be doubted, 
with perfect impunity, by his friend or his equal. 
But the case is not precisely the same between an 
author and the public ; especially upon a subject 
that is not wholly personal. Custom, at least, has 
established a difference. Else, wlryv do the most 
respectable historians deform their pages, with so 
many unsightly quotations and authorities? The 
public knows nothing of the man but as an author : 
it has often been imposed upon, and has, therefore, 
a right to be sceptical. 

If, then, 1 may be allowed to contemplate Mr. 
Macpherson, merely in the light of an author, he 
seems, in this very passage, to balance the reputa- 
tion of superior genius, against that of scrupulous 
veracity, hnd even to throw a dead weight into the 
scale of invention. Might it not fairly be collected 
from such periods, that he intended to represent 
himself as the translator of some parts of these poems, 
and as the imitative author of other parts? And if 
this be the apparent intention of the paragraph before 
us, it were in vain to look further for any thing to 
remove the impression. He says nothing more hi 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 14 

his own/vindication. He adds not a syllable relative 
to the copies, or the reciters, of any one of his 
originals ; nor does he produce a single line of 
those originals. 

In guarding myself against the charge of illibera-' 
lity, I must add this further remark.— The question* 
respecting the genuineness of the Poems of Ossian, 
does not resolve itself simply into the degree of 
credit which we impute to Mr. Macpherson*s 
assertion : it takes in the accuracy of his information, 
and the due decision of his judgment. His veracity 
can only be responsible for the facts — that he did 
not invent these poems-— that he found them in the 
Galic language, already composed, and ascribed to 
Ossian. 

Let us give our author full credit for candour and 
ingenuousness in this publication ; let us suppose 
that the Galic poems came into his hands, precisely, 
in the form in which he offers them to the public, 
and with the strongest attestation of national tra- 
dition in their favour. Yet, admitting all this, he 
cannot refuse to his readers the right of examining 
the internal evidence of their authenticity, and the 
external circumstances, by which that evidence is 
either confirmed or shaken. We must still retain 
the privilege of determining in our own minds, and, 
upon just grounds, whether these poems are, in 
reality, what they purport to be ; namely, the 
genuine productions of a Bard of the third century* 
describing the real actions of his own family, in 



15 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

which he himself was a witness and a party ; or 
whether they be the fabrication of more recent ages, 
in which the name of Ossian is only dramatically 
introduced. Having exercised this right, with 
studied impartiality, I must confess, there are some 
material circumstances, which induce me to refuse 
my assent to the editor's proposition. 

The first objection, that forcibly presents itself 
upon the face of the work, is the glaring appearance 
of anachronism ; or the incongruity of the events 
related with the age in which they are placed, or 
with any one historical age whatsoever. In the 
poem of Comala, Fingal, the father of Ossian, takes 
the field against Caracul, the son of the king of the 
world. In the dissertation which ascertains the 
sera of Ossian, Mr. Macpherson asserts, that this 
Caracul was no other than Caracalla, the son of 
the emperor Severus : and he dates the action in 
A. D. 211. According to this, Fingal was a warrior 
in the former part of the third century. 

But, upon the general face of these poems, it 
fully appears, that the great exploits of the same 
Fingal belong to those ages, in which the Cale- 
donians of Britain and the Isles, and the inhabitants 
of Ireland, were struggling for independence, with 
the men of Lochlin ; that is, the Danes and Nor- 
wegians. 

Nor can we place our hero in the beginning of 
this period of Northern incroachment, for we learn 
from the sixth book of the Fingal, that a military 



THE CLAIMS OF QSSIAN. 16 

intercourse, between the Caledonians and Scan- 
dinavians, had subsisted in the days of his great 
grandfather, Trenmor, who married a princess of 
Scandinavia. 

History places the commencement of this inter- 
course and political struggle, about the conclusion 
of the eighth, or beginning of the ninth century. 
The author of the Northern Antiquities observes 
upon this subject,* — " Britain and Gaul were too 
■" distant, and too well defended, to become the 
i* first attempts of the Scandinavian ravages :" ajjd 
he dates the commencement of their maritime ex- 
peditions into these countries, towards the beginning 
of the ninth century. But have the Celtic nations 
any obscure accounts of earlier adventures of these 
pirates, which are unnoticed in general history? 
Let us inquire of the Irish and Welsh, who, at 
least, stand upon a level with the Caledonians, for 
. the preservation of ancient records. 

The learned and patriotic Miss Brooke thus 
answers for the Irish. — u According to the accounts 
" that Irish history gives of Danish invasions, in 
" this kingdom, the earliest was about the end of 
" the eighth century: we, therefore, cannot safely 
" rest upon the credit of our Bards, who tell us of 
" numberless descents which that fierce and warlike 
\' people made upon our coasts, wherein they were 
l \ opposed and beaten back, by kings and heroes, 

* Vol. i. chap. 10, 



17 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

* f who flourished in the earliest ages of chris^ 
" tianity."* 

Caradoc of JLlancarvan, the respectable annal- 
ist of the Welsh, writes to the same effect. — ?? In 
f-i the year 795, the pagan Danes came, the first 
■' time, to the Island of Britain, and committed 
.*' great ravages in England. They afterwards 
" proceeded to Glamorgan, which they wasted 
*' with nre and sword. At last, the Welsh got the 
\\ better of them, and having slain multitudes, com- 
V pelled the survivers to return to sea. From thence 
iC they went into Ireland, and destroyed Macreyn 
*' and other places."! Hence we find that the 
annals of the Celtic tribes agree with those of other 
nations, and consequently, that the visits of the 
Danes and Norwegians to the British Islands in 
the second and third centuries, as reported by 
Ossian, are events, not only unsupported by history, 
but evidently contradictory to its authority. 

I may remark the same inconsistency with his- 
tory, in those Irish poems and romances, in which 
the character of Ossian is introduced. Oscar, the 
son of the Bard, falls at the Battle of Gabhra, 
A. D. 296, whilst Fingal was absent, upon a Roman 



* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 35. Of the Bards here alluded to, Ossian 
was the most noted : for the reader ought to be aware, that the Irish lay 
claim to this Bard, and to the heroes whom he celebrates. The credit due 
to the poems which go under his name, may be collected from future 
extracts. 

t My vyrian Archaiology of Wales, v. ii. p. 474. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 18 

expedition.* Yet the same Fingal, and his sons, 
and his grandson, are repeatedly brought into the 
field, to oppose the invading Danes, and even to 
humble Magnus the Great, king of Norway, in the 
very close of the eleventh century. 

As another series of events which present them- 
selves, in every part of these poems, we may 
discriminate the frequent expeditions of Fingal, as 
well as of his ancestors and descendants, into the 
Islands of Scandinavia. These expeditions had, 
frequently, nothing more important in their object, 
than a hunting excursion, like that which is cele- 
brated in Chevy Chase ; but they constantly ended 
in a conflict with the king of Lochlin, and a victory 
of the Caledonians. 

History does not record such Caledonian victories 
in any age ; and it is utterly improbable that they 
should have been achieved, in that very age, when 
the Scandinavians, according to Ossian, were taking 
possession of the Scottish Isles, and when the 
inhabitants of Caledonia and Ireland were unable 
to protect their own coasts, from Northern insult. 
Nor can it be conceived that, in these tumultuous 
times, a party which had set sail, upon a friendly 
visit, to the king of one of the Orkney Islands, and 
was driven by a storm into Scandinavia, should be 
competent to oppose and vanquish the high king 



Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 146, 147, 155. 



19 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of Lochlin, in the field of battle. The relation of 
such events is fabulous in its very aspect. 

The plain inference is, that these events could 
not have been recorded by Ossian, as the familiar 
occurrences of his own times, and consequently 
that the poems which report them, in his name, are 
undoubtedly spurious. It will be asked— Whence 
could such fables have originated? I can only 
conjecture, that some of the professed talemakers 
of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, had caught a 
vague tradition of certain expeditions into the 
Islands of Lochlin ; that is, if properly understood, 
those Scottish Islands which the Lochlinians had 
occupied in the ninth. Upon this rumour they 
founded their tales : and, in order to give them due 
weight and dignity, put them into the mouth of 
Ossian, the son of Fionn, a hero of the mythological 
ages. The genius of Romance, emboldened by an 
ignorance of history and geography, carried the Bard 
and his heroes, from the Western shore of Scotland — 
not to an island that was at the distance of two 
bowshots, but — over the Northern Ocean, to kill a 
boar, to rescue a distressed damsel, or vanquish a 
mighty king, on the mountains of Scandinavia. 

The general subjects of these poems are, therefore, 
either not synchronous with the supposed aera of 
Ossian ; or else wholly unfounded in history and 
real fact. And this is an objection that can never 
be overcome, unless the Caledonians can prove, that 
the credit of their Bard, unsupported by other 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 20 

evidence, and, in the face of probability, is sufficient 
to substantiate the fact, that the kings of Lochlin 
invaded the British Islands, and, at the same time, 
to carry the Caledonian conquerors into the forests 
of Scandinavia. 

But before he be admitted to this privilege, it will 
be proper to inquire, whether the costume of his 
warriors, and the general picture of the times which 
he delineates, be congruous with the history of the 
age in which he is placed. And here, instead of 
authenticating his credentials, he seems to be cnly 
extending the line of responsibility. 

In the descriptions of these poems, and in Mr. 
Macpherson's notes, the arms and habits of the Irish 
and Caledonians are represented as having been 
precisely the same in the days of Ossian. Thus far, 
the Bard and his editor are probably accurate. But 
it is remarkable that, in the delineation of those 
arms and habits, the romantic Bards of Ireland 
accord with the general tablet of history much better 
than the celebrated Homer of the North. The 
appearance of the host of Lochlin is thus described 
in Magnus the Great, an Irish poem, published by 
Miss Brooke : 

u At length we see grey morning rise, 

" Upon its early dew; 
" And the first dawn of eastern skies 

" Gives Lochlin's host to view. 
(C Before us, on the crowded shore, 

" Their gloomy standard rose, 
f* And many a chief their army bore, 

u And many princely foes. 



21 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN 1 * 

u And many a proud and bossy shield^ 

" And coat of martial mail, 
" And warlike arms of proof they wield, 

" To guard or to assail." * 

This passage gives occasion to the following re- 
marks by the translator. — cc We see here a marked 
li difference between the arms and appearance of 
cc either host. The troops of Magnus are covered 
" with steel; but we meet with no coats of mail 
" amongst the chiefs of the Fenii." And again,—" It 
ct should seem, that body armour, of any kind, was 
ce unknown to the ancient Irish, previous to the tenth 
16 century. Though the poets of the middle ages* 
" describe the heroes of Ossian as shining in polished 
cc steel, no relic of that kind of armour has escaped 
" the wreck of time in Ireland. I confess myself 
cc inclined to think, that their inflexible attachment 
" to their civil dress, would not yield to the fashion 
" of the martial garb of their enemies. It is certain 
" that the English did not find them cased in 

" armour."! 

But the heroes of the Caledonian Ossian are 
defended with iron shields. " The mail rattles on 
u their breast, and pours its lightning from every 
" side." The shield of Cathmor, an Irish king, is 
fabricated with an art not inferior to that displayed 
in the shield of Hercules, Achilles, or CEneas. 
These seven constellations are pourtrayed in their 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 54. 
t Hist. Essay on the dress and armour of the Irish, p. 106. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 22 

distinct and appropriate characters. It had also 
some peculiar qualities, which no other shield of 
ancient or modern times could boast of. " Seven 
" bosses rose on the shield ; the seven voices of the 
" king, which his warriors received from the wind, 
" and marked in all their tribes." * 

Cuthullin rides in a car, the sides of which are 
embossed with stones, and sparkle, like the sea, 
round the boat of night. Hard polished bits shine 
in a wreath of foam — thin thongs, bright studded 
with gems, bend on the stately necks of the steed s.f 
The Orkney Islands are adorned with cities, 
encompassed with ancient mossy walls :\ and— 
" several ancient poems mention wax-lights and 
" wine, as common in the halls of Fingal. "§ 

All this is so different from what we should have 
conceived of the Caledonians and Irish of the third 
century, and so little supported by collateral 
evidence, that, instead of establishing the authen- 
ticity of the poems, it impresses them with the 
glaring stamp of more recent fiction. 

Let us, however, approach somewhat nearer to 
the heroes of Ossian, and contemplate them, in 
their general characters, manners, and sentiments. 



* Temora, B. vii. t Fingal. B. i. % Carrie Thura. 

§ Fingal, B. vi. Note.— The Ossian of Ireland, like the Caledonian Bard, 
introduces wax-lights.— Reliques of J risk Poetry, p. 54. These are supposed 
to have been procured from the plunder of the Roman Provinces.— It i.<j 
more probable they came from the Roman Catholics, 

D 



23 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" Here indeed, says Dr. Blair, in the character and 
iC description of Fingal, Ossian triumphs almost 
" unrivalled : for we may boldly defy all antiquity 
" to shew us any hero equal to Fingal."* All this 
must be acknowledged, as far as it regards classical 
antiquity ; for Fingal is adorned with every good 
quality which imagination could suggest, excepting 
piety, and unsullied by any of the common frailties 
of human nature. Yet, the painting of the Cale- 
donian Bard is not so absolutely unique as this 
elegant writer seems to suppose. The same ami- 
able and Utopian picture of Fingal, presents itself 
in the romantic poems of the Irish. f I extract the 
following personal description of this celebrated 
hero, from the Rhapsody of Oisin: " Finn of the 
" large and liberal soul of bounty; exceeding all 
c< his countrymen, in the prowess and accomplish- 
iC ments of a warrior, king of mild majesty, and 
" numerous bands. The ever- open house of kind- 
" ness was his heart ; the seat of undaunted courage. 
" Great was the chief of the mighty Fenii. Finn of 
" the perfect soul ; the consummate wisdom ; whose 
" knowledge penetrated events^ and pierced through 
" the veil of futurity. Finn of the splendid and 
" ever-during glories. Bright were his blue-rolling 
"eyes, and his hair, like flowing gold! Lovely 



* T)i\ Blair's Critical Dissertation, generally annexed to MacphersonV 

Ossian. 

t See Reliques of Irish Poetry, 53, 91, 99. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 24 

*' were the charms of his unaltered beauty, and his 

ft cheeks like the glowing rose."* 

The characters of Oscar, Fillan, Cuthullm 3 &c. 

though skilfully diversified, are equally well drawn 

and well supported. But they do not appear to 

have been immediately drawn from real life. They 

are not like those characters which are found in 

history, or those mortals whom we have known 

and conversed with. They are the ideal sketches 

of a man who contemplates human nature, as it 

ought to he ; not the faithful touches of him, who 

observes it, as it is. They resemble those sublime 

figures, which the imagination has often delineated, 

on the canvass of poetry and romance — Beings 

whom we know only by ancient renown, and 

whose little defects have vanished in the distance 

of time. 

The manners and customs, which we observe in 

the society of these heroes, are equally romantic. 
But as even romance condescends to borrow some 
of her outlines from nature and history ; and, as the 
scene of Ossian's poems is placed in the middle of 
the Northern invasions ; his sketches, as far as they 
can be verified by history, exhibit the Gothic, rather 
than the Celtic style. Of this I shall give a few 
instances. In all the wars of Fingal, we find a multi- 
tude of Bards in the field, animating the prowess of 
the warriors. Fingal has his " thousand Bards" at a 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 133. 



25 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

time when his army seems to have consisted of a 
few hundreds only. The Celtic Bards belonged 
to the establishment of the Druids, who are re- 
corded to have generally kept aloof from the field 
of battle : and although my acquaintance with the 
Welsh Bards is pretty extensive, I cannot recollect 
a single instance of the harp having been produced 
in that field. But the Gothic Scalds were employed 
to compose odes or songs, which related to the 
most shining exploits of their heroes. These they 
chaunted before the army, to animate the bloody 
onset. The praises which these poets gave to 
valour, the warlike enthusiasm which animated 
their verses, the great care men took to learn them 
from their infancy, being all of them the mutual 
effects of the ruling passion of this people, served, 
in their turn, to strengthen and extend it.* Hacon, 
earl of Norway, had five celebrated poets along 
with him, in that famous battle, in which the 
warriors of Jomsbourg were defeated ; and history 
records, that they sung, each, an ode, to animate 
the soldiers, be/ore they engaged.^ 

The heroes of Irish romance also took multitudes 
of Bards with them into the field. These geniuses 
are represented as " glowing with the joint enthu- 
" siasm of the poet and the warrior; as frequently 
" rushing amidst the ranks, following their chief^ 

* Northern Antiq. v. i. p. 223. 
t Mons. Mallet, from Bartholin, p. 172. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 26 

*' through all the fury of the fight, and continuing 
V to the last, those sublime and elevating strains, 
" which inspired by the sight of heroic valour, and 
" called forth by, and suited to the instant occasion, 
" wrought up courage to a pitch of frenzy, and 
" taught the warrior to triumph, even in the pangs 
" of death."* But the first hint of this horridly- 
grotesque combination of martial and poetic frenzy, 
seems evidently to have been borrowed from the 
-Gothic nations. 

As a second instance of the imitation of Gothic 
manners, I remark that Ossian's heroes disdain to 
engage the enemy by night, or to bring superior 
forces into the field," concluding that glory was to 
be acquired only in the equal combat ; and that 
the leaders of the expedition frequently decide the 
dispute by single combat. Irish romance draws 
the same picture, in strong lines, and upon a 
Colossal scale. " What added lustre to the native 
" valour was, the extreme openness, candour, and 
" simplicity of this people (the Irish) not even to 
" gratify that insatiate thirst for power, the source 
" of such devastations, do we often read of indirect 
" or dishonourable means used. If any unforeseen 
" accident disappointed either party, as to the 
" number of troops, &c. notice was sent to his 
" opponent, and a further day was appointed, and 
" generally granted. ''f " The heroes of ancient 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 139. 
f O Hall. Int. to the Hist, and Antirj. of Ireland, p. 223. 



27 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" Ireland were sworn never to attack an enemy, at 
" any disadvantage."* It should appear, by ancient 
British history, that this oath was considered as 
binding only upon Irish ground. Be that as it 
may, all this is derived, by the Bards of Ireland and 
Scotland, from the manners of the old Danes and 
Norwegians. " By a singular strain of generosity, 
" which the love of glory was able to produce, in 
" minds, in other respects, so ferocious, if the 
" enemy that fell in their way had fewer ships than 
6k themselves, they set aside part of their own 
" vessels, that so, engaging upon equal terms, the 
" victory might not be attributed to superiority of 
" numbers. Many of them also regarded it as 
" dishonourable to surprise the enemy by night. 
" Sometimes the chiefs thought it best to decide 
" the dispute by single combat. "f 

These are precisely the manners of Ossian's 
heroes ; but in historical truth, they were, probably, 
peculiar to the Gothic nations. Nothing of the kind 
appears amongst those ancient Irish and Caledonian 
warriors who were known to the Romans and 
Southern Britons. 

Mr. Macpherson admits a perfect similarity of 
manners between the Caledonians and Britons to 
have subsisted, in the days of Ossian, and adduces 
this circumstance as an undoubted proof that they 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 75, from O HalU 
t Northern Antiq. v, i. p, 255. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 28 

were originally the same people.* This being 
granted, I know no reason why the Britons, of the 
fifth or sixth century, should have been totally dif- 
ferent from the Caledonians of the third. Yet, 
amongst these, we discover no traces of the eool, 
deliberate courage, or the clemency and generosity 
of Ossian's heroes. All was fury, passion, and cruelty. 
Aneurin?s heroes, having captivated and beheaded 
their formidable enemy, invite the ravens to pick his 
skull. Taliesin celebrates his favourite chief, Urien 
of Reged, for setting fire to houses before day. 
But, in order to bring the medium of comparison as 
near as may be, to the country and the alledged age 
of Ossian, I shall present my readers with an Elegy 
composed by an older Taliesin,] on the death of 
Cwiedda, the son of Edeyrn, a Cambrian Prince, 
which happened, according to Owen's Cambrian 
Biography, in the year 389. Whether this date be 
accurate or not, Cunedda is an historical character. 
Nennius calls him Atavus, the great grandfather of 
Maelgwn, who began to reign in Venedotia, or 
North Wales, A. D. 517, and gives the following 
account of his exploits : — 

Filii autem Vethan (Seoti) obtinuerunt regnum 
Dimectorum, ubi civitas est quae vocatur Mineu 
(St. David's) et in aliis regionibus se dilataverunt, 



* Note on Colnadona. 

t Taliesin, " Radiant front," or " Illuminated head," seems to have been 
the Epithet or Title of several ancient British Bards. 



29 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

i. e. Guiher Get Guely, donee expulsi sunt a Cunedd, 
et a filiis ejus, ab omnibus regionibus Britannicis,* 
And again, — Mailcuinus, magnus rex apud Britones, 
regebat, id est, in regione Guenedotiae, quia." Atavus 
illius Cimedag, cum filiis suis — Scotos cum in- 
gentissima clade expulerat, ab illis regionibus, et 
nunquam reversi fuerunt iterum ad habitandum.'l* 

This elegy is of difficult construction, and contains 
several words which are not to be found elsewhere ; 
but the meaning, as clearly as I can render it, is as 
follows : — 

iC I* who am Taliesin, a man of the oaks, award 
" the song of praise to the Baptized, the Christian 
" chief, the worshipper of the wonderful one. Where 
" cliff and cliff meet, in the West, was the dread of 
iC Cunedda, the ardent in battle, in Caer Wair and 
u Caer Liwelydd. The vibrating shock was given. 
u The conflict arose, like the full bursting of fire 
" through a broken wall ; when he urged his course 
" through the land of the Elgovse, like the wind 
" sighing against ashen spears. His contact, I 
" know, would produce a chill, in the midst of 
" sestival heat, But skilful Bards, drest in the habit 
u of their order, could preserve, with the token, his 
cc entire friendship. 

" The lamented death of Cunedda 1 deplore. He 
" is bewailed by Tewdwr,J as a dauntless hero, who 
" equally crushed the profound and the shallow. 



* Cap. viii. t Cap. lxiv. 

J Pcrhap? Tewdwsj Tkcodosius, in whose time cur hero lived. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 30 

rt His deep stroke brought them to a level. He 
" frustrated the proud boast of Caledlwm ;* to his 
" foe he was harder than a bone. 

" Exalted was Cunedda, chief of the natives and 
" of the land. His honour was supported on a 
" hundred occasions, before his death arrived, and 
u the hurdle of the slain was borne, by the youths 
" of Bernicia, in the field of battle. 

" For the dread of him the song of woe was 
" chaunted, before the portion of earth became his 
<c covering. His swarm were like swift dogs round 
u a thicket : they carried no scabbards — the device 
" of cowardice. 

Ci The destiny of the annihilating sleep I deplore, 
6C I mourn for the hall, for the garment of Cunedda ; 
" for the protector of the briny wave ; for the spear, 
" in which the sea confided. As for the Bards who 
<c hesitate, i despise them: with Bards of active 
iC energy, in the song of praise, will I contend ; and 
" the others will I estimate by the bundle. 

" He was wonderful in the field, with his nine hun- 
fC dred horse/) Before the communion of Cunedda,! 
" I might, by a single nod, obtain milch cows in the 
"summer; I might have steeds in the winter; I 



* Caled-lwm, a hard, bony man : the next clause contains a pun upon his 
name. 

t This was precisely the force assigned to that officer under the Roman 
Government, who was styled Dux Britannia.— See Camden's Introd, 

$ Does this mean-— B if ore he became a Christian ? 

E 



31 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" might enjoy sparkling wine, and oil ;* I mighi 
f-* possess a troop of captives. He — the unrelenting 
" consumer (Death) proceeds from his secret place — - 
" the beholder — the chief with the lion's visage, 
ff whose subjects are ashes :f he stands before the 
" son of Edeyrn, who, previous to the reign of terrors, 
Ck was fierce, undaunted, unrestrained—- he is now 
" compassed with the streams of death. 

se He had lifted his shield at the post of honour. 
" True and valiant were his chiefs— men to be de- 
" sired — equally tall — of comely aspect, and just in 
iC their movements — the race of a Colonial city." 

Here we perceive the barbaric Muse in all her 
native asperity — at this moment freely soaring aloft, 
and presently again, awkwardly creeping on the 
ground. But where is the method, where the polish, 
the refined sentiment, the unbending majesty of 
Ossian ? They are all the effect of an enlarged edu- 
cation, the property of a more cultivated age. 
Where are his deliberate, persevering, and gene- 
rously-romantic heroes ? They are not to be iound 
in ancient Britain. They are mere figures of romance, 
sketched after the Northern adventurers ; but 
painted with softened features. 

The author of the Northern Antiquities has drawn 
the character of a Celtic warrior, as diametrically 
opposite to that of Fingal and his worthies, as it is 
exactly congruous with the representations which 

* These particulars mark the time of the Roman Government. 
t Alluding to the Roman custom of burning the dead. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 32 

we observe in the old Welsh Bards. And the learned 
and judicious translator very justly remarks, that 
this character is suitable to the real Celtae, as dis- 
tinguished from the Gothic nations. 

The author's words are these : — " The Greek and 
" Latin historians represent them to us as madmen, 
Ci who, in battle, only followed the instinct of a blind 
" and brutal rage, without regarding either time, or 
" place, or circumstances. At the first sight of an 
" enemy, they darted down upon them, with the 
" rapidity of lightning.--- But^they marched, we are 
ct also told, without any order, and often, without 
u even considering whether the enemy could be 
" forced in their post or not. Hence it frequently 
( * happened that, their vigour being exhausted, it 
" was sufficient to resist the first shock, and they 
" were defeated."* 

And this is the translator's note, — te What he 
" says below, of their blind fury, of their disorderly 
" way of lighting, and being readily broken, after 
" the first shock, was true of the Gauls, &c. 
** Whereas the nations of Teutonic race, as they 
" had less vivacity, and were less choleric, so 
" they seem to have had more constancy and 
" perseverance." 

Hence it appears that the manners, and there- 
fore the actions of Fingal and his heroes, were 
delineated, not only after the men of Lochlin had 

* Northern Antiq. v, i. p. 236, 



33 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

tendered themselves familiar to the Caledonians 
and Irish ; but in an age when their general charac- 
ter was confounded with that of the natives, and 
regarded as containing the essentials of true he- 
roism. v 

Objections to the claim cf high antiquity, similar 
to those I have remarked in the Caledonian Bard, 
present themselves in the Irish poems, which bear 
the name of Ossian, together with some faults which 
are peculiar to the latter. But we find the more 
judicious of the Irish antiquaries ready to make the 
necessary allowance. They do not pertinaciously 
maintain, that they are the genuine works of Ossian, 
but view them as the productions of some more 
recent and unknown Bards, who composed in his 
name. Thus Ossian is introduced in Magnus the 
Great, as the reporter of the tale ; but Miss Brooke 
Observes in her introduction— "The language of the 
u following poem, as it now stands, is certainly too 
*' modern to be ascribed to an earlier period than 
16 the middle ages. According to the accounts that 
e ' Irish history gives of Danish invasions in this king- 
* 4 dom 3 the earliest was about the end of the eighth 
ie century : we, therefore, cannot safely rest upon 
*' the credit of our Bards, who tell us of numberless 
*' descents which that fierce and warlike people 
i( made, — in the earliest ages of Christianity. The 
u author of this piece is said to have belonged to 
u the familv of O" Neils, but what his name w r as, I 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 34 

" have not been able to learn."* Again, in the 
introduction to The Chase — " Nor can we give it, 
u at least, in its present dress, either to Oisin, or 
V to any other poet, of the age in which he lived. 
" The marks of a classical hand appear, frequently, 
" throughout the whole — I fear we should risk an 
" error, in ascribing it to any period earlier than 
" the middle ages.''t — " There are numberless Irish 
" poems still extant, attributed to Oisin — in all of 
" them, the antiquary discovers traces of a later 
" period."}; Once more — " In all these poems, 
" the character of Oisin is so admirably well sup- 
" ported, that we lose the idea of any other Bard, 
" and are, for a time, persuaded it is Oisin himself 
" that speaks — we do not seem to read a narration 
" of events, wherein the writer was neither a wit- 
" ness nor a party '."§ 

The uniform dignity of sentiment, and inviolate 
generosity of conduct, which distinguished the 
heroes of Macpherson's Ossian, appear also in the 
romantic poems of the Irish. They are exemplified 
in almost every page of the collection published by 
Miss Brooke, and thus briefly characterized in that 
lady's preface — " The productions of our Irish 
iC Bards exhibit a glow of cultivated genius — a 
" spirit of elevated heroism — sentiments of pure 
" honour — instances of disinterested patriotism — 



* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 35, 36. 
t Ibid. p. 70. % Ibid. p. 73. § Ibid. p. 76, &c. 



35 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" and manners, of a degree of refinement, totally 
" astonishing, at a period when the rest of Europe 
'¥, was nearly sunk in barbarism." But here the fair 
patriot gives her recent Bards too much credit for 
a faithful delineation of the ages in which they 
thought proper to place their heroes. Whatever 
the actual state of society may have been, in Ireland 
or in Italy, the manners delineated in the romances 
of the fifteenth century, allowance being made for 
a few local peculiarities, were very similar, all over 
Europe. In historical truth, however, the manners 
and sentiments which present themselves in the 
poems of Ossian, were not fully appropriate, 
either to the Celts or the Goths. The painting is 
far above nature, and can by no means be consi- 
dered as verified, in the age and country in which 
Ossian is supposed to have lived. Indeed, under 
the circumstances in which his heroes are placed, 
such mental refinement could not have been appro- 
priate to mortals. Scarcely has it graced the con- 
templative philosopher of the most enlightened age, 
and under the most favourable circumstances. 

The poet, therefore, has not sketched his senti- 
ments from nature, and observations of the scenes 
which passed before him ; but from a contemplative 
imagination— -from the tablet of romance, or the 
prevailing taste of his age. He has not informed 
our judgments, with the colouring of history, but 
amused our fancy with that of poetry. It follows 
that the work cannot be ascribed to Ossian, the 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 36 

son of Fingal, a Caledonian Bard of the third cen- 
tury. For though we are not to refuse the free ex- 
ercise of the imagination to a Caledonian, any more 
than to a Grecian poet; yet we must always distin- 
guish between the man who describes the trans- 
actions and the manners which have passed under 
his own eye, and the Bard who derives his subject 
from ancient fame. Ossian, as an individual, must 
have felt peculiar restraints; must have been conti- 
nually recalled, from the indulgence of imagination., 
to the relation of sober truth. A poet who snatches 
his subject from the wings of ancient fame, may 
freely indulge his fancy, in the embellishment of 
that subject. An old tale may give currency to a 
thousand improbabilities; but Ossian was describ- 
ing his own contemporaries, and scenes which his 
own eye had surveyed. He was reciting his poems 
to those who had personally known Fingal and 
Oscar and Cuthullin, and who were, therefore, 
qualified to judge critically of the truth of his 
description. Under these circumstances, he must 
have felt the necessity, not only of observing nature 
and fact, in his events, characters, manners and 
sentiments, but also, of abstaining from violent 
hyperbole, and palpable fiction, upon pain of being 
despised as a doting fabulist. 

But we can hardly open these poems, without 
casting our eyes upon the most glaring fictions, 
and such as must have presented themselves, in 
this light, to the audience of Ossian. had he been: 



37 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the reporter of the tales. Thus, in Carrie Thura> 
the rude stone which represented Loda, or Odin, 
is converted into the spirit of Loda. This spirit 
not only comes forth, armed in all his terrors, but 
makes a speech of considerable length---" Dost 
" thou force me from my place ?" replied the hol- 
low voice— u The people bend before me. I turn 
" the battle in the field of the brave," &c. Loda 
or Odin must have, undoubtedly, spoken in a Gothic 
dialect, and Fingal must have conversed with him 
in the same : but, to the chief of Selma, this was a 
trifling accomplishment. Ossian's heroes, in ge- 
neral, could hold private conferences, with the 
Scandinavians, with the South Britons, and with 
the Belgse of Ireland ; or else, the Bard's authen- 
ticity is blown into the air. How captious is this 
objection! replies the critic— Did not Priam con- 
verse with Achilles, and iEneas with Dido, and 
with the princes of Italy? True— Homer and 
Virgil give us such representations ; but the stories 
of Achilles and iEneas were ancient, when they 
came into their hands. I am not speaking of what 
poets may dare, in such cases : the question regards 
what we must receive, as matter of fact. Had 
Virgil attended his hero, in person, through all the 
adventures which he relates, it is probable we 
should have heard of some little embarrassment, on 
the subject of strange languages. But to return to 
our unfortunate ghost.— " Fingal, advancing, drew 
" his sword : the blade of the dark-brown Luno. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 38 

u The gleaming path of the steel winds through the 
u gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air." 

Our great poet, Milton, boasted of originality : 
but here we find him stripped of what was supposed 
to be one of his most original thoughts, as it cer- 
tainly is one of the most absurd in his Paradise 
Lost. The very language, in which he describes 
the cutting up of a spirit, is borrowed from Ossian! ! 
How happened it that such a plagiarism as this 
escaped the researches of a Lauder ? By the con- 
clusion of the same poem we learn that, although 
the gashes of Odin's ghost, like those of Satan, 
soon closed, his pride was effectually humbled — • 
'.* The wounds of his form were not forgot : he still 
iC feared the hand of the king." 

In the poem of Carthon, we are told of a mist, 
rising from the lake, in the figure of an aged man, 
approaching Selma's hall, and dissolving in a 
shower of blood. This sounds also like " A tale 
of other times*" 

In the War of Caros, Oscar, a youth who, if we 
may trust Mr. Macpherson, had not seen his twen^ 
tieth year, stands alone, opposed to the disciplined 
army of Carausius. But he was himself a host. 
" He raised his terrible voice. The rocking hills 
" echoed around ; the starting roes bounded away ; 
" and the trembling ghosts of the dead, fled, shriek- 
" ing on their clouds." What was the event of this 
unequal contest ? Oscar, perceiving that he was to 
have all the glory to himself — u Stood, growing in 

F 



39 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

<* his place, like a flood in a narrow vale ! The battle 
iC came ; but (who fell !) they fell : bloody was the 
" sword of Oscar !" How much is it to be regretted, 
in this age of military adventure, that Ossian was 
the last of his race ! 

But this instance of Oscar's prowess was not sin- 
gular amongst the heroes of our Bard. Calmar, 
when mortally wounded, proposes, singly, to with- 
stand, in a narrow pass, the whole victorious host 
of the Scandinavians, till the Irish army should 
have made good its retreat. What less than this 
was to be expected from the son of a man who had 
cut up a thunder cloud, with his drawn sword, 
seizing it by the curling head, and had beat away 
a tempest from the face of the sky !* Well might 
the popular translator exclaim, upon this occasion— 
" They best succeed who dare!" 

How gigantiG is the wrestling of Fingal and Swa- 
ran, on the side of the hill of Cromla I " When the 
<e pride of their strength arose, they shook the hill with 
" their heels. Bocks tumble from their places on 
" high : the green-headed bushes are overturned."-^ 

The warm imagination of a. poet may indulge 
itself in these colossal images, when describing the 
heroes of ancient romance ; but who has ever used 
such language as this, in speaking of his own father 
or his own son? Who ever listened, without a smile 
of contempt, to & grave narrative, which thus de- 



* Fingal, B, iii. t lb. B, v. 



THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 40 

scribed the actions of men, whom he had personally 
known ? The age which could tolerate extravagances 
of this kind, respecting its own contemporaries, never 
produced such a poet as the supposed Ossian, whose 
merit, as a Bard, I will freely acknowledge, when I 
shall have adduced one more criterion of his preten- 
sions as an historian. 

As we discover, in these poems, the work of 
imagination, in its boldest flights, so we may remark 
it likewise, in its usual defects. Nature is never 
tired in producing discriminate characters, nor 
Fortune, in diversifying events ; but the most 
vigorous and active imagination has its limits. 
After a few energetic efforts, it is apt, to languish, 
and its subsequent operations present us with 
copies, instead of originals. Agreeably to this 
remark, the multitude of events, related in these 
poems, do not display the — Varios casus, the 
Tot discrimina rerum, which are generally found 
in real life and authentic history. They rather 
impress the idea of numerous sketches, taken in a 
confined landscape, where the same object per- 
petually returns, in a different point of view. 

If Fingal moves, we may be sure he is going forth 
to fight and to conquer. With whatever disadvan- 
tage this hero, or his lieutenant, takes the field, 
he almost invariably subdues the hostile chief, in 
single combat ; he then either kills, or binds and 
pardons him, and returns to Morven, crowned 
with fame and glory. To the Caledonian heroes 



41 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

we will allow all their merit, yet we must suppose, 
that they could not, in every instance, have con- 
quered Fortune. This capricious goddess is to be 
kept in subjection only by the Genius of Romance, 
who, here, walks forth in triumph, conducting her 
favourite warriors in the path of renown, and infal- 
lible victory. Nor is it amongst the heroes alone 
that we trace the evident footsteps of this wayward 
Muse. We hear her pronouncing the fanciful 
names, relating the singular love adventures, and 
describing the sentimental deaths of Ossian's he- 
roines. As an elucidation of my meaning, I shall 
recite the instances of this kind, which occur to 
my recollection, and such as I can readily turn to. 

Conhan-Carglas, the daughter of a chief of 
Lochlin, shrinks and expires at|the sight of her 
lover Swaran's broken helmet. 1 

Two brothers, the jealous lovers of Strinadona, 
that is, Strife of heroes, met in the field : the one 
fell, the other was banished, and the lady, if I 
mistake not, expired with the shock. ? 

Comala, " Pleasant Brow/' disguised herself in 
the armour of a young warrior, to follow her hero, 
and suddenly expired upon hearing a false rumour 
of his death. 3 

Vinvela, " Sweet Mouth," heard a vague report 
of the death of her beloved Shilric, and expired 
with grief. 4 

I, Cath Loda, 2. lb. 3, Comala. 4, Canic-Thura. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 42 

Vtha covers herself with steel armour, to attend 
her hero, in the disguise of a warrior, and is after- 
wards discovered, by accidentally dropping her 
helmet, s 

Crimora, iC Great Heart," takes the arms of a 
warrior, to attend her hero, in private ; she ac- 
cidentally pierces him with an arrow, which had 
been aimed at his enemy, and " with grief the sad 
" mourner dies." 6 

Colnadona, "Love of Heroes," arms herself with 
shield and spear, for the purpose of exciting, by an 
innocent stratagem, a mutual flame in the breast of 
Toscar. The hero snatches away the shield, for 
the purpose of attacking a supposed enemy, and 
thus discovers the amorous Nymph. 7 

Oithona, " Maid of the Waves," is forcibly car- 
ried to sea, by a libertine prince, and ruined. 
She privately assumes the armour of a young 
warrior, to assist her lover, Gaul, in revenging 
the outrage : and when this is done, submits to 
a sentimental death, as an atonement to insulted 
honour:— rthe incident of discovery is not va- 
ried. 8 

Colmal, " Small Eyebrow,'' arms herself from 
head to foot, to effect the release of her lover, 
Calthon. Having accomplished this design, she 
is discovered, as in the other instances. 9 



5. Carric-Thura. 0. lb. 

7. Colnadona. 8. Oithona. 9. Calthon and ColrnaL 



43 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Lanul, " Full Eye,'' the daughter of Cathmol, 
having been violated by a neighbouring prince, 
dresses herself in complete armour, and assumes a 
fictitious name, to solicit the aid of the heroes of 
Morven. She procures the means of revenge, 
and then dies of the wounds of injured ho- 
nour. 10 

Colma, " Fine Hair,'' expires on the discovery 
that her lover and brother had fallen by mutual 
wounds. n 

Brassolis, " White Breast," is presented with 
the bloody shield of her lover. " Distracted, pale, 
" she flew— *-she found her youth in all his blood — 
u she died on Cromla's heath." 12 

The lover of Gelchossa, " White Legs," expires 
of a wound received in single combat with his 
rival. " Three days she mourned beside her love. 
cc The hunters found her cold." 13 

The sister of the king of Scandinavia, falling 
ki love with Trenmor, covers herself with steel 
armour, assumes a fictitious name, challenges the 
hero to single combat, and then discovers herself 
by laying aside her shield. 14 

JDartkula, " Fine Eyes," arms to assist her lover 
in the field, and afterwards expires of grief on his 
dead body. 15 

Lorma, a Scandinavian Queen, who had eloped 
with one of the heroes of Morven, was informed, 

10. Cathlin of Clutha. 11. Songs of Selma. 

12. Fingal, B. i. 13. lb. B. v. 14. lb. B. vi. 15. Darthula. 



?HE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 44 

by a ghost, of the death of her paramour. «* She 
" came — she found her hero — her voice was heard 
4i no more— silent she rolled her eyes." 16 

Sulmalla, " Slowly rolling Eyes," a princess of 
South Britain, disguises herself like a young warrior, 
to attend her lover into Ireland. 17 

Cuthona, " Moaning Waves," alias, Gormfmil, 
u Blue Eye," " pines away her soul* for the loss of 
" her only love." 1S 

Ninathona, a Scandinavian lady, is abandoned 
on a desart rock, by a cruel and ungrateful lover. 
After her release from this woeful situation, she 
has a presentiment that the dear deceiver has 
fallen in battle. " She rose, pale, in her tears — 
" she saw the bloody shield of Uthal — she saw it 
tl in Ossian's hand — her steps were distracted on 
" the heath — she flew — she found him — she fell — 
" her soul came forth in a sigh." 19 

To these examples, taken from the collection of 
Mr. Macpherson, I may add others, out of the 
sequel of Ossian's poems, published by Mr. Smith, 
in his Galic Antiquities. 

Crimora, *' Great Heart," imagining that her 
lover, Dargo, was lost at sea, goes to the shore to 
search for him, and there expires : but whether it 
was by an accidental, a voluntary, or a sentimental 
death, we are not distinctly told. 20 



1G. Battle of Lora. 17. Temora, B. 2. 

18. ConlatU and Ctithoaa. 19. Berrathon. 20. Dargo. 



45 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

The tender Crimoina, " Gentle Heart/' a Scan^ 
dinavian lady, being foolishly imposed upon by a 
feigned tale, respecting the death of the same hero, 
took her harp, and breathed out her lovely soul, 
amidst the most plaintive and pathetic strains. 
The melodious notes were still vibrating in the 
ears of her attendants, when they perceived that 
she had expired, 21 

Minla, u Fine Day," assuming the character of a 
Sard, armed herself in mail, to elude the enemy. 
When secure in the society of her friends, she 
dropped the mail, and was immediately recog- 
nized. 22 

Annir assumed [the dress of a young warrior^ 
having contrived a plot, to get rid of an importunate 
lover ; but the stratagem proving fatal to a favoured 
youth, the lady expired with grief. 23 

Roseana, " Fair Rose," languished and expired j 
under the slow pangs of disappointment. 24 

If my reader has had patience to go through this 
catalogue, he will probably acknowledge, that the 
names of these heroines are too pretty to have 
occurred to the rough Caledonian warriors, in the 
third century; that they are in the high style of 
romance ; and that they seem, in general, to have 
been purposely devised, for the adventures which 
are ascribed to the respective ladies. These ad- 



21. Dargo. 22. Duthona. 

23. Cathluina. 24. Cuthon, son of Dargo. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 40 

ventures, taken singly, may not be absolutely 
unprecedented, or wholly out of the course of 
nature. We may have heard of something of the 
kind ; but such things rarely occur. More parallels 
may be collected from a bundle of futile ballads, 
than from all the volumes of ancient and modern 
history. No man, perhaps, could ever tell three 
tales of the kind, that came within his certain 
knowledge. 

When, therefore, the Bard of Selma details twenty 
or thirty of these strange stories, in which his own 
family was implicated, and applies them, without 
distinction, to the women of Scandinavia, Caledonia, 
Ireland, and South Britain, common sense compels 
us to hesitate, before we admit the authenticity of 
the relations. And if the narratives are not authen- 
tic, the poems cannot be the genuine works of 
Ossian, who is represented as reciting the public 
transactions of his own time. They are the product 
of a romantic imagination, revolving the same 
slender stock of ideas, over and over again. 

This is not asserted to detract from the merit of 
the Bard, whoever he was, but merely as a caveat 
against the unwarranted assumptions of the His- 
torian. For I am disposed to coincide with the 
elegant author of the Critical Dissertation, in 
acknowledging the general merit of the poems, as 
mere works of imagination, to whatever name they 
are to be ascribed. 

Of 



47 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" Here, says Dr. Blair,* we find the fire and the 
" enthusiasm of the most early times, combined 
" with an amazing degree of regularity and art. 
" We find tenderness, and even delicacy of senti- 
" ment, greatly predominant over fierceness and 
" barbarity. Our hearts are melted with the softest 
" feelings, and, at the same time, elevated with the 
" highest ideas of magnanimity, generosity, and 
' ' true heroism." Of the poem of Fingal he observes, 
that, " Examined even according to Aristotle's 
" rules, it will be found to have all the essential 
66 requisites of a true and regular epic ; and to have 
" several of them in so high a degree as, at first 
" view, to raise our astonishment, on finding 
u Ossian's compositions so agreeable to rules, of 
" which he was certainly ignorant." — " The unity 
" of the epic action, which, of all Aristotle's rules, 
u is the chief and most material, is so strictly pre- 
" served in Fingal, that it must be perceived by 
" every reader. It is a more complete action than 
" what arises from relating the actions of one 
f man, which the Greek critic justly censures as 
" imperfect : it is the unity of one enterprize, the 
" deliverance of Ireland from the invasion of 
" Swaran : an enterprize which has, surely, the full 
" heroic dignity. All the incidents recorded bear 
" a constant reference to one end ; no double plot 
" is carried on; but the parts unite into a regular 

* Critical Dissertation, annexed to Macphei son's Ossian. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 48 

" whole : and as the action is one and great, so it 
* is an entire and complete action." — Of Temora, 
an epic poem in eight books, it is remarked, that 
" The subject is an expedition of the hero, to de- 
" throne and punish a bloody usurper, and to 
" restore the possession of the kingdom to the 
" posted j of the lawful prince;* an undertaking 
" worthy of the justice and heroism of the great 
" Fingal. The action is one and complete." 

Such is the language of this enlightened critic, in 
descanting upon the works before us. To the wreath 
of Ossian it could add but little splendour, to say 
that the author of the present Essay fully subscribes 
to the opinion of Dr. Blair. I admire the poems ; 
but when I am called upon to receive them as 
authentic documents of ancient times, the very 
excellence which I acknowledge in the Bard 
becomes a powerful objection to the credit of the 
Historian. To say nothing of that poetical spirit, 
those rays of pure sublimity, which enlighten every 
part of these compositions, how are we to reconcile 
the consummate art, the classical regularity, and 
the uniform majesty which pervade the whole, with 
our ideas of a blind Caledonian, of the third century ? 
Nature has displayed her power in producing 
genius. She has condescended to lead it by the 
hand— to place it in possession of a certain degree 
of irregular excellence ; but, that the guidance of 
uncultivated nature cannot, at once, conduct her 
children in the path of method, of complicated 



49 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

design, and of uniform dignity, we may conclude 
from the old Gothic and Icelandic songs, and from 
the works of the more recent Irish and Caledonian 
Bards, so often censured by Mr. Macpherson him- 
self. If these geniuses, with the perfect models of 
Ossian in their mouths, are still irregular, unequal, 
and obscure, how could the Bard of Selmt /^without 
model or precedent, have obtained regularity, uni- 
formity, and a luminous style of composition? The 
art of the Druidical school is much insisted upon 
by Dr. Blair, and by the ingenious translator. The 
Druids had poems ; but they were the unequal, rude, 
and desultory poems of barbarians. That they could 
have contributed but little, indeed, towards the 
attainment of the art of poetry, we may reasonably 
collect, from the works of the oldest Welsh Bards, 
who retain the character of Druidism. 

In the poems before us, we distinctly perceive a 
Jnodern and cultivated genius, working upon the 
materials of heroic romance. The author must have 
had excellent models, in some language. He must 
have had critical rules precisely marked. Where 
was the Caledonian, of the third century, to procure 
these things ? If he was not absolutely unacquainted 
with letters, it can hardly be supposed, that he 
possessed books in any language which could have 
afforded him the least assistance. Without models, 
without rules, and without study, these poems were 
not produced/ 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 50 

But, upon the face of these works, Ossian does 
not exhibit the picture of a student. His effusions 
are not represented as the product of silent medita- 
tion ; they are absolutely subitaneous. The wind 
moving the shield against the wall, the murmuring 
of a distant stream, or the tones of Malvina's harp, 
call hack his soul to the Sard: that is, the most 
trifling circumstance serves to awake his recollec- 
tion ; and he immediately begins to recite the tale, 
and pursues it, with the same ease and fluency, as 
an old soldier might display in recounting the 
events of a campaign. Nor was this facility of 
composition confined to the shorter poems. In the 
conclusion of the War of Inis Thona, the Bard 
thus adresses his attendants : — u O lay me, ycthat 
" see the light, near some rock of my hills! Let 
■" the thick hazels be around: let the rustling oak 
& be near. Green be the place of my rest. Let the 
" sound of the distant torrent be heard. Daughter 
■" of Toscar, take the harp, and raise the lovely 
" Song ofSelma ; that sleep may overtake my soul, 
" in the midst of joy ; that the dreams of my youth 
" may return, and the days of the mighty Fingal" 

Malvina takes the harp — the Songs of Selma are 
chaunted — the Bard is lulled to sleep by the har- 
monious sounds.— He awakes, and immediately 
pours forth his Fingal, a noble heroic poem, in six 
books. It need not be observed, that all this could 
not have been true of the real author. The extra- 
vagant, but highly picturesque idea, may have 



51 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

occurred to the imagination of some more recent 
Bard, who did Ossian the honour of composing in 
his name. 

To pass on from this objection — Whatever the 
natural and acquired endowments of Ossian may 
have been, during the vigour of his days, the very 
situation in which he is presented to our view, must 
entirely set aside his claim to the production of 
these poems. We have just now seen the helpless? 
blind, old man, led out to slumber on a shady bank, 
that he might recruit his spirits, to dictate the poem 
of FingaL The picture of extreme debility is abun- 
dantly heightened in the body of that admirable 
work. u My locks, says the personated Ossian, were 
u not then so grey ; nor trembled my hands with 
€i age. Mine eyes were not closed in darkness ; my 
" feet failed not in the race. — But blind, and tear- 
ic ful, and forlorn, I walk with little men. O Fingal, 
" with thy race of war, I now behold thee not. The 
" wild roes feed on the green tomb of the mighty 
" king of Morven !"— Book iii. <\ When shall I 
" cease to mourn, by the stream of resounding 
" Cona ! My years have passed away in battle ; my 
iC age is darkened with grief. — Whoever would have 
(i told me, lovely maid, when thus I strove in battle, 
iC that blind, forsaken, and forlorn, I should now 
iC pass the night ; firm ought his mail to have been ; 
" unmatched his arm in war." — Book iv. Again :— 
" But I am sad, forlorn, and blind: no more the 
" companion of heroes ! Give, lovely maid, to me 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 52 

" thy tears : I have seen the tombs of all my friends." 
The very same picture of the forlorn and wretched 
Ossian, occurs in the, confessedly, modern poems 
and romances of the Irish. Thus the Bard addresses 
St. Patrick, in the poem of Magnus the Great: — 

" Thou hast my tale — though memory bleeds, 

" And sorrow wastes my frame, 
" Still will I tell of former deeds, 

" And live on former fame. 
" Now old — the streams of life congeaPd, 

" Bereft of all my joys i 
" No sword this wither'd hand can wield, 

" No spear my arm employs."* 

See also, in The Chase, a long passage, upon 
which we have the following note: — u In all these 
*' poems, the character of Oisin is so admirably 
" well supported, that we lose the idea of any other 
cc Bard, and are, for a time, persuaded it is Oisin 
" himself who speaks. We do not seem to read a 
" narration of events, in which the writer was 
" neither a witness nor a party : — it is the son — the 
"father — the hero — the patriot who speaks ; who 
" breathes his own passions and feelings on our 
" hearts, and compels our sympathy to accompany 
" all his griefs ; while, in a strain of natural and 
Ci impassioned eloquence, he descants on the fame 
" and virtues of a parent, whom he describes as, 
u at once, so amiable and so great; and bewails 



* Reliques of Irish Poetry ,• p, 65. 



S3 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" the loss of all his former friends, kindred, and 
te companions ; and laments his own forlorn and dis- 
u consolate state, in apostrophes that pierce the very 
" heart of pity ! Beside passages which occur in this, 
" and the two poems of Magnus and Moira Borb, 
iC the Dialogue of Oisin and Patrick exhibits a 
" very pathetic instance, where, lamenting the loss 
u of his father and his celebrated Fenii, he exclaims, 
" To survive them is my depth of woe ! The ban- 
u quet and the song have now no charms for me ! 
tc Wretched, and old, and poor, solitary remnant of 
" the Fenii! Why — O why am I yet alive! Alas, 
" O Patrick, grievous is my state! The last of all 
" my race ! My heroes are gone ! My strength is 
tc gone! Bells now I hear for the songs of Bards ; 
" and age, blindness, and woe, are all that remain 
" of Oisin."* 

The Irish critics, we perceive, regard, this inter- 
esting character as merely representative. But the 
Caledonian antiquary contends, that Ossian is the 
real author of the Galic poems. Homer and Milton 
composed excellent poetry after their sight had 
failed. Well — The minds of these poets were rich 
with learning, which they had treasured up in their 
youth, and they still retained something of the 
vigour of manhood ; but the case of Ossian was not 
simple blindness. His age, at the time when he is 
supposed to have dictated these poems, must have 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 70* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 54 

exceeded ninety years. And in addition to the 
infirmities which generally attend such a protracted 
period of life, he complains of some afflictions that 
were peculiar to his own fortune. 

Thus worn down with years and sorrows, blindj 
palsied, destitute, and broken-hearted, the Bard 
hears the sound of the passing gale, or the murmurs of 
a distant stream, and fancies that the voice proceeds 
from the ghost of a departed hero ; or else, the wind 
moves the shield of his fathers, as it hangs on the 
ruined wall. The incident refreshes his memory. 
He calls to the aged, feeble, and disconsolate daugh- 
ter of Toscar, to take the harp. Malvina touches 
the strings, and Ossian pours forth four or five 
hundred metrical lines — they contain a well con- 
nected, artfully disposed, and eventful story — they 
are also expressed with as much glow of feeling, 
brilliancy of description, dignity of sentiment, and 
heroic ardour, as ever animated the fancy of a 
youthful and vigorous genius. 

If this startles belief — if it overleaps the utmost 
bounds of prcbability, what shall we think of an 
epic poem, of four thousand lines, fraught with all 
the fire of the Iliad, and as regular as the iEneid, 
produced under similar circumstances? Did the 
man ever exist, who could have composed, extem- 
pore, such a poem as the Fingal, or the Temora ! 
Was the task attempted and accomplished, by a 
blind, superannuated, palsied, broken-hearted, and 
illiterate Caledonian, of the third century ! In the 



H 



55 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

enthusiasm of poetic rapture, such absurdities may 
have escaped the correction of the Bard, who com- 
posed in the name of Ossian : or, perhaps, the bold 
and novel fiction may have pleased his romantic 
fancy. In poetry, which addresses itself to the 
imagination, more than to the judgment, a thousand 
extravagances may be tolerated ; but when we look 
for historical facts, we shall always find them, if 
they are found at all, within the verge of nature 
and probability. 

Let this objection also be overlooked. — Let us, 
for a moment, suppose a possibility, where it is not, 
in the case before us. Let Ossian, involved in a 
mountain of calamities, be admitted as the author of 
these excellent poems. We may still be allowed 
to ask, — How were they preserved and transmitted 
to posterity ? If the Bard, at a leisure hour, could 
recollect his extemporaneous effusions, yet his blind- 
ness, not to insist upon other disqualifications, must 
have prevented his committing them to writing. 
We read of no attendant friend, but Malvina, and 
the youth who, occasionally, led him forth to the 
sunny bank. Did they write the poems from the 
mouth of the Bard ? The very narratives themselves 
preclude this supposition. Malvina was generally 
engaged with her harp during the recitals. But we 
need not look for secretaries in the hall of Selma. 
The Galic modestly waves all claim to manuscripts 
of high antiquity. Mr. Macpherson never insists 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSI4N. 56 

upon the authority of copies.* He only drops a few 
hints about a succession of Bards, who transmitted 
the works of their predecessors from age to age, by 
oral tradition. But, with reference to the works of 
Ossian, how did this tradition commence? For 
an answer to this question, we must consult the 
poems themselves. In the tale of Oinamorul, the 
Bard calls — " Daughter of Toscar of helmets, Wilt 
thou not hear the song?" In the beginning of 
Cathlin of Clutha, the War of Caros, tyc. we 
have some intimations upon this subject, and more 
particularly in the conclusion of the last-mentioned 
poem, where the narrator thus addresses Malvina:— 
" Bring me the harp, O maid, that I may touch it, 
" when the light of my soul shall arise. He thou 
" near, to learn the song ; future times shall hear 
a of me" 

Could the incidents, the artificial arrangement, 
and even the verse, of a long and complex story, 
have been committed to memory, from a single 
recital? The drooping daughter of Toscar might 
listen ; but reason tells us she was not competent 
to the oral preservation of the tale ; and it does not 
appear that she had a friend in the world to receive 
it from her mouth. 

Thus, in every point of view, the representations 
which we have upon the face of these poems, 

* He complains perpetually that the works of Ossian have been inter- 
polated by modern Bards. — This complaint would have been precluded by 
the possession of ancient copies. 



57 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

demonstrate, that they are not the genuine compo- 
sitions of Ossian, a Caledonian Bard of the third 
century ; and it also appears that, if any such Bard 
had composed poems of this kind, he must have 
wanted adequate means to transmit them to pos- 
terity. — We have seen that the editor disdains to 
vindicate the genuineness of his author's works. — 
We perceive that the sera assigned for the exploits 
of Fingal, is inconsistent with Jits elf, and with the 
coincidents of genuine history. The expedition of 
Caracalla in the beginning, that of Carausius in the 
close of the third century, and the invasions of the 
Danes and Norwegians, in the ninth and tenth, are 
all confounded together. This is at once a proof, 
that the poems were not composed by Ossian, nor 
by any one Bard, relating the transactions of his 
own time ; but by some talemaker, who was ignorant 
of the chronology of those events which he detailed. 
And this rhapsodist must have lived many ages 
after the period of the Danish invasions : for, other- 
wise, he could not have mixed those expeditions 
with incidents of history, which had preceded them 
by more than five centuries. 

And this proof has been confirmed, by shewing, 
that the defensive armour, which our heroes are 
represented as having worn, was not used by the 
Caledonians and Irish of the third century — that 
the characters are fictitious — that the manners and 
sentiments are borrowed from the Northern nations, 
and heightened by romance— that the author in- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 58 

dulges in the most palpable fiction — that he ascribes 
the same romantic adventures to several different 
persons — that his art of poetry is such as the Celtic 
nations had not attained — that Ossian is repre- 
sented as labouring under personal infirmities and 
disqualifications, which must have rendered the 
composition of these poems impracticable to him — 
and that the Caledonians had no probable means 
of preserving poems, from times so remote. 

These poems, then, do not present us with au- 
thentic details of the actions of Fingal, but with 
fanciful tales, respecting some hero of tradition, 
distinguished by that name. They are not the 
genuine works of Ossian, but poetical romances, 
like those of the Irish Bards, in which Ossian sup- 
ports a kind of dramatic character— -the production 
of some later age or ages, in which the reputed 
deeds of Fingal are only viewed at a distance, and 
in which the name of Ossian is introduced, as merely 
representative. Considered in this light, their in- 
trinsic merit, as heroic tales, entitles them to respect. 

Even the suppositious authority of Ossian is a 
thing not wholly unprecedented in poetry. Virgil 
puts the second and third book of his iEneid into 
the mouth of the Trojan prince ; but would any 
critic deem this a sufficient reason for quoting those 
books, as the genuine works of iEneas? Amongst 
the remains of the Gothic muse, we have also a 
poem of considerable length, ascribed to Regner 
Lodbrog, who was confined in a dungeon, to be 



59 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

destroyed by serpents, as the tale reports. This 
prince is represented as singing an extemporaneous 
composition, in his dying agonies, and as only pro- 
tracting his last breath, to pour out the closing 
stanza. But as no animate being appears to have 
been present, to record the lay, excepting the vipers 
who had stung him to death, ought we not to hesi- 
tate, before we pronounce this poem to be the 
genuine production of Lodbrog ? The learned author 
of the Northern Antiquities thinks — " There is 
" some reason to conjecture, that the prince did 
" not compose more than one or two stanzas of 
" this poem, and that the rest were added after his 
" death."* 

But whatever we may think of Mr. Macpherson's 
critical acumen, in ascribing these poems to an age 
so remote, his veracity, as yet, stands unimpeached. 
He professes to have found his originals in the 
Galic language, and attributed to Ossian, as well 
by general national tradition^ as by the internal 
evidence of his name. All this may be fact. Ossian's 
signature was also impressed upon a great number 
of Irish poems ; he had the voice of the multitude 
in his favour, and it is only the severe sentence of 
criticism which has compelled him to relinquish his 
unfounded claim. Galic poems may bear the same 
stamp, and may have obtained the same popular 
credit ; yet we may be right in refusing to receive 

* Northern Antiquities, v. ii. p. 226. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAfc. 60 

them, as the genuine works of Ossian, or to sub- 
scribe to their authority, as authentic documents of 
history. There is no criterion of the antiquity of 
oral tradition, which only exists in the mouths of 
the present generation : and we have seen no reason 
to conclude, that a Galic Poet of learning and 
genius, in the seventeenth, or even eighteenth 
century, could not have produced poems, in his 
native language, as excellent as those which Mr. 
Macpherson has exhibited in an English dress. I 
here suppose the existence of Galic originals : for 
we have evidence which candour must admit, that 
this gentleman did collect a considerable supply of 
traditional poetry, from the oral recitations of the 
Highlanders; and that he did transfuse, into his 
popular volumes, some of the matter which he had 
thus collected* 



SECTION II. 

On the alterations which Mr. Macpherson appears to have made in the Galic 
poems 7 which he is acknowledged to have collected; with remarks upon the 
arguments which have been adduced, in support of the genuineness of those 
poems. 

The state in which these poems were collected, concealed by Mr. Mac- 
pherson; but elucidated by the aid of the Galic Antiquities. — Some account 
of that book. — The author's candour — his description of Macpherson's 
originals. — State of the original Galic poems. — Smith, a disciple of Mac- 
pherson.— Particulars of the editorial art of these gentlemen. — Remarks on 
oral tradition. — Arguments of Dr. Blair, Mr. Macpherson, and Mr. Smith, 
inconclusive. 



If Mr. Macpherson's character, as Editor of 
Ossian's poems, has been the subject of improper 
animadversion ; if his veracity has been unjustly 
doubted, he must have had the less reason to 
complain, as the injury, principally, arose from 
the peculiarity of his own conduct. The surprize 
and the suspicions of the public were very natural, 
and such as might have been foreseen and expected. 
A Caledonian Bard, of the third century, was in- 
troduced. He had never been heard of before. 
His poems, a large and excellent collection, had 
remained in total obscurity, down to our age; and 
now we are told, for the first time, that they had 
been accurately preserved, for fifty generations, by 
a people who had never boasted of their literary 
treasures. 

Where have these poems been for so many ages? 
where were their manuscripts concealed, and how 
discovered ? who are the persons by whom they are 
now recited orally ? where may Mr. Macpherson's 
complete collection be seen and examined ? why is 
it wilhholden from the public ? Upon an occasion 
so extraordinary, these and the like questions ought 
not to have been deemed impertinent. They were 

i 



63 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

asked, and answered only with sullen disdain. Can; 
we wonder at the scepticism that followed ? Mr. 
Macpherson was called upon, for six connected 
lines of his originals. He published his revised and 
final edition, without producing one* He seems to 
have committed the cause of Ossian principally to 
the elegant pen of Dr. Blair, for whose Critical 
Dissertation he probably furnished some private 
materials. The chief arguments in this celebrated 
tract, it will be proper for me to consider, when I 
have, first of all, endeavoured to form some idea of 
the state in which Ossian came into Mr. Macpher- 
son's hands, that I may obtain a distinct view of the 
author and the editor. 

But for this purpose it will be necessary to explore 
some other source of information : and I know of 
none more promising than the Galic Antiquities, 
of the Rev. John Smith, of Kilbrandon, in Argyle- 
shire. This is a quarto volume, published in 1780. 
It contains a History of the Druids, a Dissertation 
on the authenticity of Ossian's poems, and a large 
collection of poems, chiefly ascribed to the same 
venerable Bard, with notes and specimens of the 
originals. 

Mr. Smith informs us in his Dissertation, that from 
his youth he had been an enthusiastic admirer of 
Ossian — that, early struck with the beauty of some 
of his poems in the original, and finding several 
which had escaped the inquiries of Mr. Macpherson, 
he had begun to collect them for his own amuse- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 64 

ment — that, ten years before his book appeared, he 
had communicated some of his originals, with their 
translation, to certain literary friends at Glasgow — 
that their encouragement and approbation had 
animated him to pursue his researches with increased 
diligence ; and that the present collection was the 
fruit of his inquiry. Thus it appears that the work 
before us was no hasty or unweighed undertaking. 

We are also told that this gentleman's researches 
extended, not only over the West of the Highlands, 
and into several of the Isles, but also into the more 
inland and mountainous parts of the country. Here 
he found many poems, which related the actions 
of Fingal and his heroes, which were ascribed to 
Ossian; and, like the works published by Mr. 
Macpherson, had the name and character of that 
Bard interwoven in their very texture.* 

Mr. Smith's candour and openness are as re- 
markable as the sullen taciturnity of his predecessor, 
whose backwardness to communicate any informa- 
tion respecting his originals, at least, after public 
curiosity had been excited, is sufficiently known 
and remembered. In his improved and final edition, 
he only drops some general hints, relative to an 
unbroken succession of Bards, and their oral tra- 
dition : but Mr. Smith does him the public justice 
which he had refused to himself. In a note upon 
p. 95, we are informed, that Mr. Macpherson is 

* See the Diss. Galic Antiq. p. 126, &c. and the poems subjoined, 



65 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

said to have got his largest and most valuable 
manuscript of Ossian from a Mr. Macdonald of 
Croidart : it was known in the country by the name 
of Leabhar Dearg, or the book with the red cover. 
Another manuscript he got from M'Vurrich, Bard 
to Clanronald. Of this Leabhar Dearg, we have 
neither date nor table of contents, nor information 
as to its present place of repose. Mr. Macpherson 
has not availed himself of its authority with the 
public. I therefore conjecture, it may have con- 
tained some works of the Irish Ossian. We learn 
from Mr. Smith, that the Highland gentry did 
entertain Irish Bards.* 

Mr. Shaw tells us, in the introduction to his Galic 
Grammar, that the Highlanders had no books but 
Irish, and a few recent tracts, which are written in 
imitation of the Irish dialect ; and, in the introduc- 
tion to his Dictionary, that the Irish dialect has 
always been the written and studied language. I 
may add, that the Irish have been in the habit of 
naming their books from the colour of the binding; 
thus, Leabhar JBuidhe, the yellow book, Leabhar 
JDubh, the black book, in Edward Llwyd's Cata- 
logue of Irish MSS.t 

Of M'Vur rich's manuscript, mentioned above, 
we have some further information. — " In a single 
w family only, has any of this order (the Bards) been 
ft retained, since the beginning of this century: 

9 Galic Antiq. p. 43. t Archaeol. p. 435. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 66 

€i and the last in that family came down to our times 
u in a very advanced life. His favourite songs are 
" said to have been the poems of Ossian. When 
" age was coming on, memory beginning to fail, 
" and no successor likely to appear, he had so many 
^ of them as he most admired, committed to writing. 
" By a happy coincidence, Mr. Macpherson over- 
< c took this Bard, and got his treasure. This fact, 
<c with the red book formerly mentioned, and some 
'* other MSS. (not specified) accounts for his having 
" found these poems in greater number and per- 
" fection than they could ever since be met with.''* 
Thus we are told that Mr. Macpherson is said 
to have obtained two MSS. which are said to have 
contained some of the works of Ossian ; but not a 
syllable of their particular contents has been de- 
tailed, and the place where they may still be seen, 
in the state in which that gentleman found them, 
has not been mentioned. But one thing is clear: 
Mr. Macpherson's treasure of Galic poems was, 
for the first time, committed to writing, in the 
eighteenth century. And it appears from our au- 
thor, that rival Bards, in different parts of Scotland, 
as late as the middle of that century, were in the 
habit of composing original works in the name and 
character of Ossian. f How are we certified that 
M'Vurrich's treasure was not of this description? 
If these poems were really ancient, it must be 

* Galic Antlq. p. 125. t Ibid. p. 92. 



67 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

deemed a remarkable circumstance that, amongst 
the multitudes of the higher order, who, for fifty 
generations had been charmed with their beauties, 
and animated by their heroism, not a man can be 
pointed out who chose to grace his library with a 
single copy. But it seems the labour of copying 
would have been superfluous. " There are some 
" old men who still repeat a few of them as of old, 
'$ round the flame of the winter fire. But, are these 
" the very poems, it will be asked, that have been 
" translated and published by Mr. Macpherson ? 
" The poems which this gentleman and his friends 
" gathered from oral tradition, were certainly no 
6i other than those we have spoken of as commonly 
*' repeated in the country.''* Begging the author's 
pardon, this is not coming quite to the point. Mr. 
Macpherson may have gathered what the people 
had to bestow ; and he might have chosen to publish 
compositions or compilations of his own in their 
stead. But not to be more scrupulous than the 
question requires we should be, it is evident from 
this, and from several other passages in the Galic 
Antiquities, that certain poems or fragments of 
poems, ascribed to Ossian, were familiarly repeated 
for the entertainment of winter evenings, and, 
therefore, perfectly understood by the populace, at 
the time when this collection was made. 



* Galic Antiq. p. 75 ; see the note ; see also p. 97, 128, 134, 307, 314, &c 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 68 

And amongst the pieces of Ossian, which were 
most generally known five and twenty years ago, 
and which occurred to Mr. Smith, in the process of 
collecting from oral tradition, we distinguish several 
which coincide in their subject with Mr. Macpher- 
son's publications— as, The Battle of JLora, the 
Episode of the Maid of Craca, the most affecting 
parts of Carthon, Conlath, Croma, JBerrathon, the 
Death of Oscar, in the first book of Temora, and 
almost the whole of Darthula* 

Hence we are assured, that some of the most 
splendid parts of Mr. Macpherson's Ossian, or of 
poems upon the same subjects, did actually exist 
in the Galic; that Macpherson was not the first 
inventer of all the poems which he published, and 
that, had he been so disposed, he migh thave pro- 
duced six lines of his originals in answer to Dr. 
Johnson's challenge ; though not, perhaps, in that 
finished style in which he wished Ossian to appear. 

That the poems of Ossian should have constituted 
the popular ballads of the Highlanders, in the 
middle of the eighteenth century, is a singular and 
prominent circumstance in their history. It shall 
be considered hereafter. But in the meantime, it 
may be proper to inquire, in what manner these 
poems were repeated, and consequently how far, 
upon the most favourable hypothesis, they can be 
supposed to have been preserved by oral tradition. 

* Galic Antiq. p. 97. 



t*y THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" That we have not the whole of the poems of 
" Ossian," says the author of the Galic Antiquities, 
" or even of the collection translated by Mr. Mac- 
'* pherson, we allow; yet we have many of them, 
" and of almost all, a part. The building is not 
" entire; but we have still the grand ruins of it/'* 

This is a liberal acknowledgment, and the gentle- 
man who makes it will allow us, with equal freedom, 
to ask — How then was it possible for Mr. Mac- 
pherson to present to the public a complete elevation 
of this grand fabric, when he found it only in ruins : 
and especially, how could he justly delineate those 
wings and ornaments of which not even a part 
remained? We may arrive at the solution of this 
problem, by a careful observation of Mr. Smith's 
design as editor, and his manner of executing that 
design. I shall premise a few words in support of 
his evidence. 

The Highlanders, who furnished this writer's col- 
lection from oral recital, were individuals of the 
same people who, in the very same age, had supplied 
Mr. Macpherson in a similar way. The authorities 
of the former were therefore equally good with those 
of the latter. It cannot be conceived that the 
Virtuosi of Scotland would recite to Mr. Macpher- 
son, only the genuine works of Ossian, and to Mr. 
Smith, only some spurious pieces, which were 
ascribed to the same Bard, and, in which his cha- 

* Galic Antiq. p. 123. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 70 

racier was d ramatically introduced. But to obviate 
the force of such a plea, however absurd in itself, 
1 must again remark, that our author found, amongst 
his collection, Galic originals of several pieces 
which had been translated by his precursor. And 
these had no peculiar mark, by which they could 
be distinguished, either by the reciters or the col- 
lector, as of a different character from the rest of 
the general mass. 

Mr. Smith's poems, therefore, and his authorities 
for them, stand upon equal ground with those 
which Mr. Macpherson collected from oral tra- 
dition. We may remark further, that Mr. Smith 
has candidly given the names of his principal con- 
tributors, and thus opened the way fo,r the detection 
of fraud, had any such thing been intended.* 

When we examine the poems themselves, in the 
translation, we shall discover in them the same 
peculiar character, the same wild excellence, com- 
bined with a due regard to essential rules, which 
mark those of the former collection. If Mr. Smith's 
poems contain two or three incidents, which the 
taste of his predecessor would have expunged, this 
difference resolves itself wholly into the personal 
judgment of the editor. 

No man ever possessed so good an opportunity as 
the author of the Galic Antiquities of discriminating, 
minutely, the character which his precursor had 

* Galic Antiquities,, p, 123, note, 
iv 



VI THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

supported, in his publication of Ossian. With a 
competent skill in the Galic language, — with ori* 
ginals of several poems of the former collection in 
his hands, and with the English translation of those 
poems before his face, he saw precisely what had 
been already done, in preparing the works of Ossian, 
to meet the public eye. His attention to this subject 
was not that of a cursory, superficial observer. His 
undertaking demanded of him something more. 
From originals of the very same kind, he was pre- 
paring for the press as many poems as would fill two 
hundred and twenty quarto pages. They were 
intended as a sequel to Mr. Macpherson's collection : 
and it was requisite that they should assimilate with 
it. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary, that 
Mr, Smith should study every particular of the art 
and manner of his master, with the unremitted care 
of an emulous and ambitious disciple ; that he should 
reduce his study into practice, and aim at nothing 
more. 

Let us now return to the subject. — Of the state 
in which these poems came into Mr. Smith's hand, 
and of the improvements which that hand bestowed 
upon them, we have the following account:— *- 
" Many pieces were found, of no inconsiderable 
** merit, though few of them either entire or un- 
a corrupted. What seemed, in this case, the most 
" natural expedient, was, to collect from different 
" quarters, as many editions (oral recitations) as 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 72 

" possible, in order to supply the defects, and reo 
" tify the mistakes of the one by the help of another. 5 ' 

All this is very admissible ; but let us proceed — 
M After the materials were collected, the next 
(i labour was to compare the different editions, to 
" strike off several parts that were manifestly 
" spurious ; bring together some episodes that ap- 
" peared to have a relation to one another, though 
" repealed separately ; and to restore to their 
" proper places, some incidents that seemed to 
" have run from one poem into another. In this I 
" proceeded with all the care and fidelity due to 
** such a work. The most material of the altera- 
c i tions and transpositions which I have made, are 
" taken notice of in the notes annexed to their 
** respective poems, and it would be superfluous 
" here to repeat them. It might be equally un- 
" necessary, if candour did not require it, to 
" mention the unavoidable necessity of throwing in, 
" sometimes, a few lines or sentences, as marked in 
« the notes, to join some of these episodes together, 
iC and to lead the reader through a breach, which 
" must have otherwise remained a hiatus. All these 
**, are liberties which necessity, in this case, enjoined, 
" and which the laws of criticism, I hope will 
« allow."* 

I transcribe this passage in the author's own 
words, in order to communicate some idea of the 

* Galic Antiquities, p, 128. 






73 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

editorship which was unavoidably necessary in pre- 
paring the w r orks of Ossian. But where had Mr. 
Smith acquired this degree of dexterity, so uncom- 
mon amongst editors — so^readily to reject whole 
passages— to transpose incidents from one poem to 
another — to bring together detached episodes, and 
to throw in whole paragraphs of his own ; so as to 
produce regular compositions out of shapeless frag- 
ments? Let the reader judge for himself whether 
I have not already traced out the real source of his 
art.— During the progress of collecting Galic poems, 
he met with several of those which had been tran- 
slated by Mr. Macpherson. Comparing these with 
the English translation, he saw distinctly what had 
been already done, and consequently, what re- 
mained for him to do, as his work was to agree and 
unite with the other. It was necessary for him to 
employ the whole editorial art of his predecessor, 
and nothing mare. 

This was taking a ready method to exhibit beauti- 
ful and regular English poems ; but not to preserve 
a faithful picture of Ossian, or expose to public view, 
the real state of poetry in Caledonia. Mr. Smith, 
however, is ingenuous. His notes detail numerous 
instances of compilation and composition in which 
he indulged. This gentleman's rules are before us : 
and we may safely extend them to the whole of 
Ossian ; whereas, without his aid, we should, for the 
most part, have been left to our own conjectures 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 74 

respecting the unprecedented liberties assumed by 
his mysterious master. 

The senigina is now approaching to its solution — 
It is no wonder that Ossian is so ancient, if every 
passage and expression, that savoured of recent 
times and manners, could be struck out, ad libitum, 
— no wonder that he is so beautiful, if all the choice 
flowers of Caledonia have been culled to decorate 
his muse; or so regular, if the polished wits and 
critics of the eighteenth century have selected epi- 
sodes, transposed incidents, formed and connected 
the tale, from the resources of their own learning 
and genius. But we have not yet heard the whole 
evidence in this cause. 

" If any apology be requisite (continues Mr. 
■" Smith), for these freedoms, I can add, that I have 
" been, for the most part, guided in my conjectures, 
" and even supplied in my additions, by the tradition- 
Ci al tales, or Sgeulachds, which always accompany 
" and explain the old Galic poems, and which often 
Ci remain entire, when the poems themselves are 
" reduced to fragments. Where these tales did 
" not throw some ray of light, I have been always 
cc scrupulous to venture far, and have, therefore, 
"left several breaches open; considering that, 
" when there was no other way of supplying them, 
"but from fancy, any other person had as much 
" right to do that as I had. Sparing, however, as 
u I have been jf making any alterations, which 
" were not necessary, and warranted by some of the 



75 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

<( various readings, or by the tales, I am sensible 
" the form of the poems is consiberably altered from 
" what is found in any single one of the editions, 
" from which they were compiled. They have 
" assumed somewhat more of the appearance of 
"regularity and art than they are in that shape m 
" which they are generally to be met with. The 
" reason of this, which has just now been given, 
" will, it is hoped, be sustained as sufficient, by such 
" as might, perhaps, be better pleased if they were 
"presented to them, in that bold and irregular 
" manner, in which they have been long accustomed 
iC to hear them"* 

The consideration, of these traditional tales or 
romances, mentioned by the author, I must put off 
to another section, contenting myself for the pre- 
sent, with exhibiting a few instances of the use 
which he made of them. 

" The versification, in several places, is broken, 
" and only supplied from the traditionary tale, 
" which accompanies the poem. 5 't Again : — " The 
"■most of this paragraph, and part of that before 
" and after it, are selected from the traditionary 
u tale of the poem. The dialogue is there carried 
" on to a greater length, but appears too frivolous 
" to be translated.''^ Once more : — " The most of 
u this paragraph, with $omc others that follow, 



* Galic Antiquities, p. 129. 
f Ibid. p. 173, note on Duliiona. i Ibid. p. 152* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 76 

" particularly before and after the song of the old 
" Bard, have been supplied from the tales, as the 
\* versification is broken and defective."* 

Without a constant recollection of the school in 
which Mr. Smith studied, it will be difficult to 
conceive^ how he could suppose the liberties avowed 
in these, and many similar passages, to be consistent 
with the province of a translator j or an editor. 
Those who oblige the public with versions or edi- 
tions of ancient authors, never deem such freedoms 
warrantable ; nor do I think this gentleman could 
have supposed they came within his sphere, and 
have given himself credit for his frugal use of them, 
had he not observed, that they had been already 
employed, with still greater latitude, in adorning 
the muse of Ossian. 

The pieces contained in the Galic Antiquities 
assimilate with the shorter poems published by Mr. 
Macpherson. The author has exhibited nothing 
that can be compared with a Fingal or a Temora. 
Was this the necessary consequence of his boasted 
self-denial, in forbearing to venture far, where 
neither the incidents of the poem, nor a kindred 
episode, in another poem, nor some one of his 
various readings, nor even the popular tale, threw 
some ray of light upon the subject ; and when there 
was no other way of supplying incident and con- 
nection, but from fancy and conjecture ? 

* Galic Antiq. p. U5, notes on the Fall of Tura, 



77 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

That Mr. Macpherson indulged freely in the use 
of liberties such as these, we learn, principally, by 
inference, from the avowed conduct and practice of 
his pupil — from what he found absolutely necessary 
in an editor of Ossian. His master's secrecy and 
mystery, upon this subject, have withholden most of 
the direct evidence, which we could have wished to 
produce ; yet something may be discovered. 

Amongst the fragments of Ossian, which are still 
most genei'ally known, Mr. Smith found the most 
affecting parts of Carlhon, Conlaih, Croma, and 
JBerrathon: from these parts, Mr. Macpherson 
restored the entire poems. Almost the whole of 
Darthula was repeated : this almost was converted 
into an altogether. The Death of Oscar was welt 
known as a separate tale : we now find it incor- 
porated into the Temora, a complete epic poem, in 
eight books.* 

Mr. Macpherson himself gives us a few distant 
hints, relative to his editorial mystery. In the pre- 
face to his final edition, we perceive him restraining 
some exuberances in imagery, which had appeared 
in his former edition. These exuberances are ac- 
knowledged to have been his own : it must follow, 
that he had made some additions to Ossian. But 
he had also retrenched from him, in many instances. 
In a note upon Colnadona, he mentions an episode, 
handed down so imperfectly, that it does not deserve 

* See Galic Antiquities, p. 97* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 70 

a place in the poem. In a note upon Cathlin of 
Clutha, we discover Mr. Smith's licence for select- 
ing and transposing — f c The Highland Senachies 
" (modern Bards) have prefixed to this poem, an 
" address of Ossian to Congal, the young son of 
H Fergus, which I have rejected, as having no 
u manner of connection with the rest of the piece. 
u It has poetical merit ; and, probably, it was the 
" opening of one of Ossian's other poems, though 
" the Bards, injudiciously, transferred it to the 
" piece now before us." Impressed with this idea, 
Mr. Macpherson would, undoubtedly, have re- 
transferred this address, had he found a more 
convenient place for it. Thus we find the editor 
charging the modern Bards with every irregularity, 
which he discovers in the works of Ossian, and 
assuming to himself the unlimited right of adjusting 
the page of his author, agreeably to his own taste. 

Again: in a note upon Sulmala ofLumon, we are 
told — " The Highland Senachies, who, very often, 
" endeavoured to supply the deficiency, they thought 
u they found in the tales of Ossian, have given us 
" the continuation of the story of the daughter of 
f Surandronlo. The catastrophe is so unnatural, 
" and the circumstances so ridiculously pompous, 
" that for the sake of the in venters, 1 shall conceal 
" them." See also two notes on Cath- Loda, Duan 2, 
a very long note on the beginning of Duan 3 — two 
notes on Cathlin of Clutha, a note on Temora, 
book iii, &c. : from^ali which, it fully appears, that 



79" THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Mr. Macpherson did not publish these poems as he 
found them ; but that he exercised an unlimited 
authority over his originals, condemning, as the 
interpolations of modern Bards, and rejecting, with- 
out ceremony, whatever passages or expressions 
were thought to militate against the antiquity, the 
beauty, or the regularity of Ossian. 

Of his additions we have no particular account. 
But when we know that, till very lately, Galic 
poems were preserved only by oral tradition; when 
we recollect the manner in which they were re- 
peated — as the words of popular airs — as detached 
episodes, and as broken, irregular rhapsodies — we 
shall not want conviction, that additions were as 
indispensably necessary to Mr. Macpherson as to 
his pupil, Mr. Smith. And when the former gentle- 
man assures his antagonists;, that he should not 
translate what he could not imitate ,* he, undoubt- 
edly, points to a necessary qualification in the 
editor, who would represent Ossian as consistently 
ancient, as uniformly beautiful, and as strictly 
regular. 

For the complete elucidation of this fact, we 
are indebted to Mr. Smith: and, to those who 
might wish to discover truth respecting the works 
of Ossian, I would recommend a diligent perusal 
of the dissertation and notes, in the first edition 
of the Galic Antiquities. 

* Diss, on the poems of Ossian. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 80 

I do not mean to insinuate, that the research 
would strip Mr. Macpherson of all his laurels. If 
it would set aside his title to the credit of original 
composition, or to the humbler praise of a faithful 
translator ; it would still leave him in possession of 
something valuable. He might still enjoy the satis- 
faction of having produced, from rude and defective 
materials, a collection of spirited and amusing poems, 
in a novel style. But he should not have published 
them as genuine works of Ossian, or grounded 
historical facts upon their authority. 

If the editors of Galic poetry had confined them- 
selves to the mere selection and transposition of 
the sentences of old songs, their works would be of 
that kind, which the ancients distinguished by the 
name of Cento. Like the compiler of Virgilius 
Evangelizcms, they might have still claimed the 
privilege of making their author say what he never 
intended. But when they go still farther, and 
connect episodes with incidents of popular tales, 
and imagery of their own fancy, they can only aspire 
to the reputation of having produced something 
analogous to the more modern title of OUa Podrida* 

Mr. Smith has done his precursor the justice to 
vindicate his character, from the unqualified imputa- 
tion of imposture, with which it had been injured, 
by some writers of credit. He records instances of 
his candour,which were either unknown in England, 
or unregarded. He also furnishes strong collateral 
evidence, that Galic poems, on the exploits of the 



81 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Fingalian heroes, did exist. He produces several 
hundred excellent lines, as specimens of his own 
collection, and some, even of Mr, Macpherson's. 
In an advertisement prefixed to his volume, he 
promises the public a complete edition of all his 
originals, upon due encouragement : he met that 
encouragement, and fulfilled his engagement. He 
assures us, that several parts and episodes of these 
poems are still repeated in families ; that they are 
accompanied with ancient original music, and that 
their language is perfectly understood.* 

The same thing appears in Mr. Macpherson's 
publication. " The paragraph just now before us 
u (says that writer), is the song of Conban-Carglas, 
" at the time she was discovered by Fingal. It is 
" in lyric measure, and set to music, which is wild 
u and simple, and so inimitably suited to the situa- 
" tion of the unhappy lady, that few can hear it 
" without tears. "t Again : — " This episode is, in 
" the original, extremely beautiful. It is set to that 
" wild kind of music, which some of the Highlanders 
" distinguish by the title of Fori Oimarra, the song 
" of the mermaids, &c.' 5 J And this reminds me of 
that remarkable circumstance which I have already 
mentioned ; namely, the long period of popularity 
which the muse of Ossian is supposed to have en- 
joyed. The editors of Galic poetry adjudge many 



* Galic Antiq. p. 95, 97, 122, 128, 134, 307, 314. 
f Note on Cath Loda, Duan i. % Ibid. Duan iu 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 82 

of the ballads and songs, which were familiar to 
the illiterate Highlander, in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, to be undoubtedly the composi- 
tion of Ossian* But, considering the sera assigned 
to that Bard, this opinion appears to me very ob- 
jectionable. If even those detached episodes and 
fragments, which adorn the bottom of Mr. Smith's 
pages, were composed in the beginning of the fourth 
century, the circumstance of their being still so 
perfectly understood, as to constitute the trivial 
amusement of winter evenings, in the Highland 
cottage, is the most singular phenomenon that 
Scotland can produce. It places the language of 
that country upon a most stable basis, very different 
from that of any other Celtic nation. 

Ireland boasts the stability of her language, and, 
I believe, with some reason ; but, at the same time, 
her antiquaries find it difficult to translate poems, of 
far more recent composition, and fairly acknow- 
ledge, that such poems could have been preserved 
only in writing. As for my own countrymen, I must 
put them entirely out of the question. Taliesin and 
Aneurin have been obscure for a thousand years. 
Their poems seem, at present, to be in a dead lan- 
guage. Even the elegant and pathetic Davydd ab 
Owilym, who wrote little more than four centuries 
ago, would frequently want an interpreter, in the 
families which speak the purest modern Welsh. 

* See Galic Antiquities, p. 97. 



83 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Chevy Chace, and the ballads of Robin Hood, were 
composed about the time of Elizabeth. Some frag- 
ments of them may still be found in the mouths o^ 
a few English rustics : but who, excepting the 
poring antiquary, can now be entertained with 
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or the Visions of 
Pier's Plowman ? 

Before we can admit, that the language of Ossian, 
alone, possesses an exemption from mortality, we 
must demand some evidence of this its distinguished 
privilege, stronger than any which has hitherto 
come before us. For what does that amount to ? 

The editors found the name of Ossian in those 
fragments of poems which they collected. The 
origin of those fragments was unknown ; but the 
populace, those judges of the accidents of language, 
esteemed them ancient and genuine ; their subjects 
also referred to some remote ages. National pre- 
possession was in their favour ; and the translators 
were patriots. They received them as they found 
them,, and the patriotic bias easily disposed them to 
ratify their credentials. Why should they be the 
first to suspect that their composition was more 
recent than the times which they described? Why 
should they search for evidence or argument, which 
could only have tended to the degradation of the 
Caledonian muse? 

National prepossession takes a strong hold, even 
of vigorous minds. Ossian was contemplated not- 
only as an ancient, but as an excellent poet. Many 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. B4 

of the fragments which bore his name, countenanced 
this opinion. We have seen that Mr. Smith, whilst 
he culls his various readings, — whilst he prunes, 
selects, transposes, and ransacks the popular tales, 
and his own fancy, for connective paragraphs, — is 
fully persuaded that he is only restoring Ossian. 
Had Mr. Macpherson less of the patriotic enthusi- 
asm ? Was he less zealous for the glory of Scotland? 
He obtained Mac Vurrich's treasure. He was struck 
with the beauty of many of the fragments it con- 
tained. He wished to communicate to the public 
an idea of that beauty. From oral tradition, he 
made collections of his own. His various readings 
suggested many improvements. The popular tales, 
which treated of the same subjects, presented 
spontaneous hints of easy connection, and the 
poems began to grow into form. Ossian, every day, 
appeared more worthy of himself. Excellence was 
now full in the editor's view; and his taste and 
genius, neither of which he possessed in a con- 
temptible degree, spurred him on to the attainment 
of that excellence. He had begun well ; but where 
was he to have checked his career ? At what precise 
point ought he to have stopped his improving hand ? 
At what period, to have blotted out the name of 
Ossian, and substituted that of Macpherson? A 
great change was effected ; but it was effected by 
degrees. — The old woollen stockings, by repeated 
mendings, were gradually converted into silk. 



85 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Mr. Macpherson's first publication, he tells us> 
was merely accidental. Several of the fragments 
which he had worked up into his Fingal, being well 
known in Scotland, as the reputed works of that 
hero's son, the editor modestly retained the name 
of Ossian. He may have thought that he had only 
restored the poem to that brilliancy and polish, with 
which it was originally adorned by the venerable 
Bard. But when the doubts of the public, who had 
not quite so high an opinion of old Celtic poetry, 
and their loud clamours for the original, became 
troublesome, how was the editor either to reclaim 
the work for himself, or to exhibit his Galic author ? 
Could he declare that he had no originals? That 
would have been unjust to the cause of his country. 
Could he produce his fragments and episodes, 
tacked together by paragraphs of humble prose, or 
awkward imitations, in hobbling verse ? That would 
have been exposing both Ossian and himself to 
ridicule. Nothing was left but to intimate to the 
public, in his final edition, that Macpherson and 
Ossian went partners in fame — that he was both the 
author and translator ^ and that he could imitate as 
well as Anglicise the native beauties of the Cale- 
donian muse. To his friends he also frequently 
repeated a kind of sine die promise, that the ori- 
ginal Bard should step forth ; that is, I suppose, if 
ever he should be able to furnish him with a robe 
suited to his princely dignity. 






THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 80 

In denying the genuineness of the poems of Ossian, 
and even their existence, as Galic poems, in the form 
in which they present themselves to the English 
reader, I avail myself of the direct evidence of the 
author of the Galic Antiquities: but I have also 
suggested, that those episodes and fragments, which 
the Highlanders actually repeat, as the works of this 
Bard, are not genuine : and this I have done, in 
contradiction to the opinion of the last mentioned 
writer, who thinks that, to all men of judgment, 
taste, and candour, who have perused with attention, 
either the poems themselves, or the able and elegant 
defence of their authenticity by Dr. Blair, all future 
vindication must appear a superfluous labour.* 

Arguments vary in their force and effect, as the 
point which they are directed to substantiate, is 
more or less probable in itself. And though I think 
the cause of Ossian too desperate for the undertaking 
of the most able advocate, yet, to him who touches 
upon this subject, the arguments of such a writer as 
Dr. Blair, must be the objects of attention. I shall 
therefore briefly consider such of them as may not, 
incidentally come in my way, in other parts of this 
essay. 

It must, first of all, be observed, that the Doctor 
acknowledges his ignorance of the original poems, 
and of the language in which they are asserted to 
have been composed. His reasoning arises from a 

* Galic Antiq. p. 87, 

M 



87 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

view of the translation, and, perhaps, from some 
private hints that were put into his hands. The 
principal part of the Critical Dissertation only 
descants on the merit of Ossian, as a poet. Having 
acknowledged his excellence in general terms, the 
author proceeds to his first defensive argument. 
In this, he meets the grand objection, That Ossian's 
poetry is too regular and artificial, for the age and 
country in which he is supposed to have lived. 
Upon this subject the elegant writer is very copious ; 
but the substance of his argument amounts to this — 
That Ossian may have derived his art of poetry 
from that order of Bards which was connected with 
the Druidical Establishment. 

This hypothetical reasoning assumes — That the old 
Celtic Bards were excellent poets — that Ossian had 
studied their manner, and acquired their art ; and y 
consequently, was qualified to compose excellent and 
regular poems, upon the model of these masters. 

But if we may judge from the oldest specimens 
of poetical composition, which have been preserved 
by different Celtic nations, the poetry of those Bards 
was extremely rude, uncouth and unequal. It was, 
in every respect, very dissimilar from the works 
which have been ascribed to Ossian: and, therefore, 
if Ossian was the disciple of those Bards, he could 
not, possibly, have been the author of the poems in 
question.* If he was not their disciple, his art of 

* See the Odes of the ancient Irish in the Relics of Irish poetry, and 
the Transactions of the R. I. Academy, for the year 1788 : see also the spe- 
cimens and description of the old Welsh Bards, in Mr. Turner's Vindication* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 08 

poetry is still unaccounted for, and the great objec* 
tion unanswered. The Doctor had conceived a very 
erroneous idea of the state of poetry amongst the 
ancient Celts. Let this error be corrected, and the 
whole force of this primary argument is immediately 
directed against the authenticity of Ossian. 

Doctor Blair's second argument is thus ex- 
pressed : — " The manners of Ossian 's age, as far as 
<( we can gather them from his writings, were 
" abundantly favourable to a poetical genius. The 
4t two dispiriting vices, to which Longinus imputes 
" the decline of poetry, covetousness and effeminacy, 
" were, as yet, unknown. The cares of men were 
f few. They lived a roving, indolent life ; hunting 
" and war were their principal employments ; and 
6< their chief amusements, the music of the Bards, 
fi and the feast of shells." 

But, for most of the particulars in this description 
we need not resort to the writings of the Galic 
Bard : they were applicable to the Highlanders, in 
the days of our fathers. The picture is sketched, 
in nearly the same words, by Sir J. Dalrymple,* as 
well as by the editors of Ossian. Were the High- 
landers rich and covetous ; were they soft and 
effeminate, seventy years ago ? Were they indus- 
trious, and fully occupied with business? Had they 
forgotten the pleasures of the chase, their ancient 
glory in war, the music and tale of the Bards, or 

* Sec their description at large, in the Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, 



#9 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the abundance of the feast ? And if the manners 
here implied were favourable to poetical genius, in 
the third and fourth centuries, why should they be 
deemed less favourable in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth, when some portion of learning might be 
called in to their assistance ? 

The author of the Critical Dissertation observes, 
in the next place: — " The compositions of Ossian 
& are so strongly marked with characters of an- 
v. tiquity, that, although there were no external 
<? proof to support that antiquity, hardly any reader 
M of judgment and taste, could hesitate in referring 
f them to a very remote aera. There are four great 
" stages, through which men successively pass, in 
cc the progress of society. The first and earliest is 
" the life of hunters ; pasturage succeeds to this, as 
V the ideas of property begin to take root; next 
" agriculture ; and lastly, commerce." 

The particulars under this head are the following, 
to which I subjoin a few obvious remarks. — 1. "Here 
f* are but few allusions to pasturage, and no traces 
" of agriculture." — But the case is precisely the 
same, in Irish poems of the fifteenth century, which 
treat of Fingal and his heroes, and in Scotch poems 
of a still more recent date. The Bards were not 
describing scenes which were present before them. 
They were aware, that the subjects of their tales 
were placed in a simple and remote age : their 
fancy, of course, would not dwell upon modern 
improvements, and familiar objects. The rhymers 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 90 

of Queen Elizabeth's days have well preserved the 
barbarous manners of Robin Hood's age.— 2. " No 
" cities appear to have been built in the territories 
" of Fingal." — Could we ascertain the precise 
boundaries of the kingdom of Morven, we should 
probably find no cities within the same limits, at the 
present day. This poetical dominion was evidently 
small. The hero could hardly start a buck, without 
running him into the territories of some neighbour- 
ing prince ; yet the dominions of Fingal contained 
the grey walls and hundred towers of Selma, and 
the royal palace of Tura.* — 3. " Every thing pre- 
" sents to us the most simple and unimproved 
H manners — at the feast, the heroes prepare their 
' c own repast." — But nearly such have been the 
manners of the Highlanders, and such the custom 
of hunting parties, and companies of warriors, to a 
very recent age. The fourth argument is stated 
thus : — " The representation of Ossian's times must 
" strike us the more, as genuine and authentic, 
," when it is compared with a poem of later date, 
" which Mr. Macpherson has preserved, in one of 
" his notes. It is that wherein five Bards are re- 
f* presented as passing the evening in the house of 
Ci a chief, and each of them, separately, giving his 
" description of the night. — The author has allowed 
F some images to appear, which betray a later 
" period of society — whereas, in Ossian's works, 
<c from beginning to end, all is consistent." 

* See Galic Antiq. p. 313, &c. 



91 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

The poem here alluded to is a single instance, 
in which the professed purpose of the author is, to 
paint the scene which is actually moving before his 
eyes. The province of those Bards, who composed 
m the character of Ossian, was totally different. It 
was their business to sketch what they thought a 
just representation of a remote age. We must also 
recollect what Mr. Macpherson repeatedly incul- 
cates to us, that he strikes off, as the interpolation 
of later Bards, every paragraph and expression that 
seems inconsistent with the age, which he assigns 
to his poems. This argument, therefore, is only 
complimentary to the judgement of Ossian's editor. 

Let us proceed to the next.- — u The circle of 
" ideas and transactions is no wider than suits such 
u an age ; nor any greater diversity introduced into 
u characters, than the events of that period would 
" naturally display." This might be regarded as an 
instance of judgment, in the compilers of the 
poems, had not the editor repeatedly assured us, 
that the ideas of the modern ^Galic Bards are still 
confined within the same narrow circle. 

We are told, in the next place, that " The manner 
" of composition bears all the marks of the greatest 
" antiquity. No artful transitions ; nor full and 
" extended connection of parts ; such as we find 
" among the poets of later times, when order and 
" regularity of composition were more studied and 
" known." Whoever attends to the conduct of the 
story, and the collocation of episodes, in the Fingal 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 92 

and Temora, not to mention the smaller poems ; 
whoever adverts to Mr. Macpherson's elucidations, 
throughout the whole collection, must be convinced, 
that abundance of well directed art has been em- 
ployed ; infinitely more than what appears in the 
work of any other poet, of a rude and barbarous age. 
Of this, Doctor Blair himself is fully aware, when 
he tells us — " There we find the fire and the en- 
" thusiasm of the most early times, combined with 
" an amazing degree of regularity and art' J 9 and 
when he represents nature and the Druidical school, 
as having taught Ossian all the essential rules of 
Aristotle. As for the connections of parts, it is 
pretty clear, from what has been already quoted 
out of the Galic Antiquities, that the editors are 
responsible for most of them, whether good or bad* 
Again ; it is said that " The language has all the 
u figurative cast, and all the marks of genuine 
" antiquity." Mr. Smith, who recapitulates all the 
Doctor's arguments, dwells at some length, on the 
topic of Ossian's language. This subject occurs in 
the 90th page of his volume ; and in a note at the 
bottom of the page, he informs us, that the same 
style is still used in Galic compositions. This fact 
is also evident, from the modern pieces, which both 
Mr. Smith and Mr. Macpherson have quoted in 
their notes. And the last mentioned author ob- 
serves, that the modern tales of the Highlanders 
preserve the very language of the Bards. — The 
converse of this proposition is, probably, nearer to 



93 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the real fact* What, then, is there peculiarly an- 
tique in the language of Ossian ? 

The next argument adduced in the Critical 
Dissertation seems to be utterly at variance with 
the first, in which Ossian is represented as a disciple 
of the Druidical Bards. — It is in these words : — 
" There are besides, two other circumstances to be 
** attended to, still of greater weight, if possible.— 
" One is the total absence of religious ideas from 
" this i&ork, for which the translator has, in his 
is preface, given a very probable account, on the 
t( footing of its being the work of Ossian. The 
" Druidical superstition was, in the days of Ossian, 
" on the point of its final extinction ; and for par- 
" ticular reasons, odious to the family of Fingal; 
ic whilst the Christian faith was not yet established.' 

I have already remarked several coincidences, 
between the history of the Caledonian and the Irish 
Ossian. The Atheism of the latter, or his absolute 
ignorance of religion, is not the least remarkable 
trait of his character. Of this, Miss Brooke, in her 
Reliques of Irish Poetry, has exposed some shock- 
ing instances. Thus, p. 88, the Bard addresses 
St. Patrick:— 

" Where was thy God, when Magnus came-* 

" Magnus the brave and great ; 
ee The man of might, the man of fame, 

u Whose threat'ning voice was fate I 
<l Thy Godhead did not aid us then ;— 

" If such a God there be, 
" He should have favour'd gallant men, 

" As great and good as He. v &c. 6sc< 






THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 94 

But to return to the argument — Is it probable, 
that the poetical art of the Druids, whatever it may 
have been, survived their superstition ; or that the 
disciples of their school, amongst whom Ossian has 
been ranked, would not have preserved some tinc- 
ture of the fountain from whence they drew ? We 
know that the very contrary has happened to the 
old Bards of the Britons. There is hardly an atom 
of art in all they have left us; but they are full 
of mythological allusion, and druidical superstition. 
It should appear, then, that Ossian was not a dis- 
ciple of the druidical Bards; and, at any rate, that 
either this argument, or the other, must be expelled. 
In the writing of such an author as Dr. Blair, we 
should not have expected to be reminded of the 
pellets of a boy's popgun. But these materials 
may have been put into his hands in their present 
arrangement, and suffered to pass without due ex- 
amination, and cool reflection. As the Doctor, 
however, has referred us to the translator, let us 
hear his account. — In the Dissertation concerning 
the (era of Ossian, we are told, that, in the time of 
Trathaly the great-grandfather of our Bard, a civil 
war commenced, which soon ended, in almost the 
total extinction of the religious order of the Druids 
•—that a total disregard for the order, and utter 
abhorrence of the druidical rites, ensued. Under 
this cloud of public hate, all that had any knowledge 
of the religion of the Druids, became extinct, and 
the nation fell into the last degree of ignorance, of 

N 



95 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

their rites and ceremonies. — In the poem of Cathlin 
of Clutha, Trenmor, the great-grandfather of Fingal, 
with his young son, Trathal, is represented as having 
entirely broken the power of the Druids, and their 
Scandinavian auxiliaries* But the poems, as well 
as the prose romances of the Caledonians, are in- 
consistent. In two long " poems of Ossian," in 
Mr. Smith's collection, we find Dargo, the son of 
the chief Druid, and his son Cuthon, at the head of 
powerful armies, with their Scandinavian auxiliaries, 
opposed to Fingal and his sons, Ossian and Fergus,* 
Thus we find Ossian, the historian of his own times i 
varying no less than four or five generations, in the 
account of a great and public event — undetermined 
whether he should ascribe the glory of the victory to 
his father, or to his great-grandfather, or to himself. 
Mr. Macpherson having, in his Dissertation, ac- 
counted, as we have seen, for Ossian's silence, re- 
specting the druidical religion, proceeds two pages, 
and then adduces the absence of allusion to Chris- 
tianity, as an argument, that the Bard had composed, 
at an sera prior to the introduction of that religion : 
and yet, in the intermediate page, he has told us, 
that those who write in the Galic language— -he 
uses the present tense — seldom mention religion in 
their profane poetry ; and he regards this custom 
alone, as a satisfactory account for the author's 
silence, concerning the religion of ancient times. 

* Galic Autiq. p. 277, and 293. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 96 

What kind of reasoning is this ! Ossian never 
mentions religion : it is the custom of the modem 
Galic Bards not to mention religion, in their profane 
poetry ; therefore Ossian must be ancient ! 

I now proceed to Dr. Blair's other great circum- 
stance ; namely, " The entire silence, which reigns, 
" with respect to all the great clans or families, which 
" are now established in the Highlands." 

Though we contend that the author of these 
poems did not compose in the third century ; yet 
we must maintain, that he composed for that age, 
or for some period of remote antiquity. Many of 
the present families are ancient : their origin, not- 
withstanding, may be discovered ; and the author 
would not commit himself so far as to place them 
in the days of Fiugal. In disallowing the Bard's 
claim to high antiquity, we do not mean to deny 
him the exercise of common sense, and of a con- 
siderable degree of shrewdness. 

The poem ascribed to Rowley, on the Battle of 
Hastings, mentions none of the English nobility of 
the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as present in 
that action ; but this silence has not been adduced 
as a strong argument, that young Chatterton was 
not the real author. 

Of the general system of Clanship, the Galic 
Bard does not appear to have been ignorant, If we 
are not allowed to assert, that the heroes, and the 
young warriors, who always attended Fingal, in the 
field, in the chase, and at the feast, constituted his 



97 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

appropriate clan, or rather the clan of Trenmor, and 
that the friendly or hostile chiefs, who were close at 
his elbows, may be considered as the heads of other 
clans ; yet, the poems themselves, will assist us, in 
pointing out some establishments of this kind. In 
the poem of Carthon, we read — " Cathul rose in his 
" strength, the son of the mighty Lormar: three 
" hundred youths attended the chief; the race of 
" his native streams." Here the editor remarks in 
a note — " It appears from this passage, that clan*' 
" ship was established in the days of Fingal, 
" though not on the same footing with the present 
f< tribes, in the north of Scotland." 

I have now considered the arguments, upon which 
Dr. Blair regards the antiquity of Ossian, and the 
genuineness of his poems, as fully established^*— 
*' All these (concludes the author) are marks so 
" undoubted, and some of them too, so nice and 
" delicate, of the most early times, as to put the 
" high antiquity of these poems out of question." 

With the most sincere endeavours to divest 
myself of prejudice, I have minutely examined these 
marks ; but I have still the mortification to differ in 
opinion from a writer so elegant and so respectable. 
I can find here no satisfactory evidence of the an- 
tiquity of these poems. In a cause less desperate 
than that of Ossian, all these particulars could 
be produced only as corroborative circumstances. 
Mixed with solid and substantial proofs, they might 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 98 

properly adorn and fill up an argumentative dis- 
course : without such proofs, they do nothing. 

The works themselves, in the state in which Mr. 
Macpherson found them, were such, I humbly 
presume, as a man of genius and some learning may 
have produced, within the two last centuries. I 
will suppose the Bard to have lived in the Highlands, 
and to have had the popular tales of his country, 
and some fragments of its more ancient poetry, with 
similar fragments of the Irish Bards, present to his 
recollection. He had now nothing to do but to 
select and versify the most interesting parts of his 
traditional stories, in a manner suited to the taste 
of his audience. The works thus produced, having 
been new modelled, pruned, connected, and adorn- 
ed, by the judgment, discernment, and imitative 
genius of Mr. Macpherson, might easily have 
assumed that form in which we now find them. 

I have already remarked, that the editor seems 
to have committed the question of antiquity and 
genuineness, principally, into the hands of Dr. 
Blair : but he has not entirely neglected their de- 
fence, in his own person. In his Dissertation 
concerning the wra, he remarks, — " The strongest 
66 objection to the antiquity of the poems, now given 
u to the public, under the name of Ossian, is the 
■" improbability of their being handed by tradition, 
&' through so many centuries. Ages of barbarism, 
" some will say, could not produce — such poems ; 
" and could these ages produce them, it is impossible 



99 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

« but they must be lost, or altogether corrupted, in 
" a long succession of barbarous generations." 

This truly formidable objection, the author en- 
deavours to refel, by ascribing the preservation of 
the poems to the Bards, the disciples of the Druids, 
who had their minds opened, and their ideas en- 
larged, by being initiated into the learning of that 
celebrated order. We have already seen the other 
face of this argument ; but let the writer have his 
own way. If this character, however, was applica- 
ble to the Bard who originally produced the poems, 
and to those who first received them from his 
mouth; yet, it is acknowledged, that the order soon 
degenerated : for we are presently told, that their 
successors became exceedingly fanciful, fabulous, 
and absurd. — «' They loved to place the founders 
" of their families in the days of fable, when poetry, 
cc without fear of contradiction, could give what 
u characters it pleased to her heroes." We are 
afterwards informed, that every chief, in process of 
time, had a Bard in his family — that the office 
became, at last, hereditary — that the successors of 
these Bards handed down the poems, from genera- 
tion to generation, by oral tradition — that they 
repeated them, to the whole clan, upon solemn 
occasions, and that this custom came down to our 
own times. 

We have partly heard the editor's character of 
those pilots, whose office it was, to conduct Ossian 
in safety, over the perilous gulf of fifty barbarous 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 100 

generations. But lest we should have misconceived 
his meaning, let us listen again. — " A succession of 
" Bards was retained, in every clan, to hand down 
" the memorable actions of their forefathers. As 
" Fingal and his chiefs were the most renowned 
" names in tradition, the Bards took care to place 
u them in the genealogy of evert/ great family. 
" They became famous among the people, and an 
" object of fiction and poetry to the Bards. 
" The Bards erected their immediate patrons into 
" heroes, and celebrated them in their songs. As 
u the circle of their knowledge was narrow, their 
" ideas were confined in proportion. A few happy 
** expressions, and the manners they represent, 
" may please those who understand the language ; 
ii their obscurity and inaccuracy would disgust in a 
" translation."* 

We may judge, from hence, of the fidelity , capa- 
city, and accuracy of such oral reciters. They are 
elsewhere described as indelicate, absurd, and 
puerile in the extreme — a pretty strong proof, that 
their memory was not furnished with such excellent 
models as the poems of Ossian. The strong ob- 
jection therefore remains in full force. The poems 
were produced in a more cultivated age ; and, as 
they were not preserved in writing, that age did not 
precede — it must have come after the times of the 
trivial and puerile Bards. 

* Diss, on the Poems of Ossian. 



101 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Mr. Smith has also added a few circumstances fo 
the observations of Dr. Blair. He finds some names 
of places in Scotland, derived from Fingal and his 
heroes ; as, Cruach Fhionn, the Hill of Fingal: — 
but Fhionn implies also, white, fair, small y &c ; it 
might, therefore, enter into the descriptive name of 
a place, without any reference to Fingal. So also, 
among the Isles, we find Inis Chonnain, Inis 
Aildhe — the Isle of Connan, Aldo, &c. But the 
poets may have borrowed names of fabulous heroes 
from the appellatives of places, as Geoffrey of 
Monmouth had his Camber from Cambria, his 
Albanactus from Albania, &c. On the other hand, 
we must not forget, that the Bards loved to engraft 
the founders of their patrons' families into the con- 
nections of Fingal. 

Again : the poems are said to contain many Galie 
proverbs: but may not the Bards have borrowed 
proverbs from the people, as well as the people 
from the Bards ? 

Several gentlemen, having desired the High- 
landers to explain passages of old poems, which 
they repeated, found their extemporaneous explana- 
tion correspondent with the English version.* 

Mr. Smith infers, — " Either these persons were 
" inspired, or Ossian's poems are authentic." This 
conclusion is not warranted by the premises, which 
only prove, that those particular passages did exist 

* Galic Antiq. p. 97. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 102 

in the Galic, and that they had been faithfully 
translated. Here is no document of the existence 
of any entire poem, nor of the age and authenticity 
of these very passages. 

Harold Harfager conquered the Hebrides in 875 * 
and the Galic names of those Islands are said to 
have been, consequently, lost ; hut several of them 
are still found in the poems of Ossian: whence it is 
inferred, that those poems are of higher antiquity 
than the reign of Harold,* But surely these names 
did not vanish immediately upon the Norwegian 
conquest. The old inhabitants were neither extir- 
pated nor expelled : for the Galic language is still 
spoken in those Islands. When the natives used 
their own language, they would certainly continue 
to designate their country, by the names which 
they had derived from their forefathers. Edward 
the First finally conquered Wales ; but the inhabi- 
tants still use their native terms for the country 
in general, and for its particular districts. The 
Highlanders also, who knew these Islands, would 
naturally, for some generations at least, continue 
to distinguish them by their usual names. The 
Britons had lost Worcester, Gloucester, York, and 
the Isle of Wight, long before the age of Harold ; 
yet they still remember Caer Warangon, Caer 
Loyw, Caer Evrawg, and Ynys Wyth, After all, 
the names of Islands which are found only in these 

* Galic Antiq. p. 98; 
O 



103 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

poems, may not be authentic. A composer of ro- 
mance may speak of the Isle of Whales, the Isle of 
Waves, the Isle of Mist, the JRocky Isle, &c. without 
being a great proficient in ancient geography. 

These are the principal arguments for the anti- 
quity of Ossian, which I find in the dissertations 
and notes attached to his works. To search for 
more of the same kind, in all the Scotch Disser- 
tations, Sketches, Histories, &c. &c. which have 
appeared since the year 1761, would be endless 
labour: but though the field be so wide, I am 
persuaded the harvest would prove but scanty. — 
It may be taken for granted, that the best and 
steadiest troops of the King of Morven are those 
which surround his royal person. 

I therefore quit this part of the subject, with the 
general impression, that the false principles, in con- 
clusive arguments and flashing hypotheses, which 
appear in the defenders of Ossian, arise from the 
weakness of the cause : and I proceed to feel out 
my way, as well as I can, towards the real origin 
of these poems. 



SECTION III. 



On the origin of the Galic poems, with some conjectures relative to the 
principal hero whom they celebrate. 

The poems partly arose from the traditional tales.— Account of those 
tales.— The Irish had similar tales. — Which were the originals ? — The pub- 
licity of the Irish— and obscurity of the Scotch tales— prove that the 
former were the originals.— Conjectures on the history of Fingal.— Mr. 
Macpherson's calculation of his aeia — contradictory in itself. — Attempt to 
discover his sera — probably, the close of the •ninth, century — though some 
Irish and Scotch poems bring him down to the end of the eleventh, — The 
Caledonian Bard imitates an Irish poem of the fifteenth century — this 
circumstance furnishes a fair criterion of the age of the Galic poems. 



If these poems, I mean, the detached episodes, 
and fragments of poems, which the Highlanders 
actually repeat, are not the composition of Ossian, 
or of any other Bard, in those early times, which 
they describe, it may be asked, what general idea 
ought we to form of the manner of their production? 

My opinion is, that they did not originate from 
one simple source, but that some of them were 
compiled out of the popular tales of the High- 
landers ; and others, out of similar tales of the Irish 
nation ; whilst a tliird series may be regarded as 
direct imitations of Irish poems. 

There can be little doubt that the immediate 
parents of several of these pieces, are to be sought 
amongst the traditional tales, or Sgeulachds, men- 
tioned by Mr, Smith, which always accompany 
and explain the old Galic poems, and which often 
remain entire, when the poems themselves are re- 
duced to fragments .* From these tales they were 
versified by some unknown Bards, who had sufficient 
genius to distinguish and select the most valuable 
parts of such materials. This hypothesis is not 
new. The author of the Galic Antiquities remarks— 

* Galic Antiq. p. 129. 



107 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" Some have supposed, that a great number of the 
" Galic tales, which are in a language highly figura- 
f* tive and poetical, though not confined to numbers, 
-" have been the first essays in poetry, and long prior 
" to the sera of verse." Very well : but what are 
the sentiments of this very writer, who was much 
in the secret of Ossian? — " This is not improbable, 
u as the warmth of the uncultivated imagination, 
u and the barrenness of language, would naturally 
f.f give rise to all the figures of rhetoric, before art 
" could reduce words to measure or numbers."* 
Is not this giving up the authenticity of Ossian, at 
one stroke ? For the tales of the Caledonians 
cannot have been more ancient than their subject : 
and, if the tales which relate to the actions of Fingal, 
were long prior to the (era of verse, it must follow, 
that they could not have been versified by the son 
of that hero. 

I will not insist upon this, as I am inclined to 
think, that verse, of some sort or other, was known 
to the Caledonians, long before they knew any thing 
of Ossian. At the same time, it must be remarked, 
that the author of the poems, which go under this 
name, regards the tales as of the higher antiquity. — 
" His words came only by halves to our ears ; they 
6i were dark, as the tales of other times, before the 
" light of the song arose" And again, in the 
beginning of Oina-Morul, where the personified 

* Galic Antiq. p. 275. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN; 108 

Ossian professes to relate his ovbn expedition to 
Scandinavia — P I seize the tales as they pass, and 
" pour them forth in the song'' 

Let us now attend to the history of these tales*, 
as recorded by the editors of Ossian, and let Mr* 
Macphersonbe heard first. — p As I have mentioned 
" the traditional tales of the Highlanders, it may 
" not be improper here to give some account of 
<c them. After the expulsion of the Mar ds from 
u the houses of the chiefs (that is, three generations 
" ago), they owed all their subsistence to the 
u generosity of the vulgar, whom they diverted 
" with repeating the compositions of their prede- 
" cessors, and running up the genealogies of their 
P entertainers, to the family of their chiefs. As 
" this subject was, however, soon exhausted, they 
" were obliged to have recourse to invention, and 
" form stories, having no foundation in fact, which 
" were swallowed with great credulity by the 
u ignorant multitude. By frequent repeating, the 
" fable grew upon their hands, and as each threw 
16 in whatever circumstances he thought conducive 
" to raise the admiration of his hearers, the story 
" became, at last, so devoid of all probability, that 
" even the vulgar themselves did not believe it 
i6 They, however, liked the tales so well, that the 
u Sards found their advantage in turning professed 
P talemakers. — These tales, it is certain, like 
P other romantic compositions, have many things in 
*' them, unnatural, and, consequently, disgustful to 



109 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" true taste ; but I know not how it happens, they 
« command attention, more than any other fictions 
" I ever met with. The extreme length of these 
" pieces is very surprising, some of them requiring 
" many days to repeat them, but such hold they 
" take of the memory, that few circumstances are 
" ever omitted, by those who have received them; 
" only from oral tradition : what is still more amaz- 
-** ing, the very language of the Bards is still 
" preserved.'** 

To this account of the tales, Mr. Smith fully 
subscribes, observing first of all,- — " That they take 
" the strongest hold of the memory and imagina- 
u tion ; insomuch that they are frequently to be 
" met with, where the poems ttre beginning to be 
f c rare."\ 

Such, then, are the traditional tales of the High- 
landers, which some have supposed, with probability 
on their side, to have been long prior to verse /— 
those tales, with the materials of which Mr. Smith 
stops up the gaps in his poems, and supplies a 
multitude of paragraphs ; and, by the aid of which, 
Mr. Macpherson obtains the complete story of most 
of the poems which he has published. — For the full 
confirmation of these facts, I appeal to these gentle- 
men's introductions to the several poems, and to the 
notes throughout their volumes. 

If there needs any stronger proof that Fingal and 
his heroes were the frequent theme of these modem, 

* Note on Catu-Loda, Duan i. t Galic Antiq. p. 129. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. HO 

unfounded talemakers, that proof has alrerdy been 
given in the words of both editors. Wherever the 
poem exists, we always find a prose narrative, upon 
the same subject, orally repeated by the Highlander. 
The question is, which of the two must be accounted 
the original ? If we believe the Bard, that honour 
pertains to the tales : for he says expressly, " I seize 
" the tales, as they pass, and pour them forth in 
" the song." 

But, for a more circumstantial solution of this 
question, let us compare one or two of the poems 
with the epitome of their appropriate tales. In the 
first note upon Cath Loda, the poem which opens 
Mr, Macpherson's collection, the editor remarks — 
" The abrupt manner in which the story of this poem 
" begins, may render it obscure to some readers : it 
" may not, therefore, be improper to give here the 
€ i traditional preface, which is generally prefixed to 
" it." He then recites a circumstantial account of 
Fingal's visit to the Orkney Islands, — how, upon his 
return to his own dominions, a tempest forced him 
into a bay of Scandinavia, where he was met by his 
enemy, Starno, the king of that country, &c. — - 
adding, in conclusion — " The sequels of the story 
" may be learned from the poem itself." 

Here we may perceive, at one glance, that the 

tale is complete in its kind: it comprehends the 

whole subject of Fingal's expedition ; whereas the 

poem only selects a few detached circumstances. 

The former is intelligible by itself; but the latter 

p 



ill THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

could not be understood, and therefore could not have 
existed, without a reference to the prose narrative. 
The subject of this poem appears, therefore, to have 
been taken from the tale, in the same manner as 
the subject of a tragedy is derived from a volume 
of history. 

Let us go on to the next piece — Comala, a dra- 
matic poem. * * Tradition, says the editor, has handed 
" down the story more complete than it is in the poem 
ec — Comala, the daughter of Sarrio, King of Inistore, 
66 fell in love with Fingal, at a feast to which her 
" father had invited him, after his return from 
" Lochlin, after the death of Agandecca. Her 
" passion was so violent, that she followed him, 
" disguised like a youth, who wanted to be em- 
« ployed in his wars. She was soon discovered by 
" Hidallan, the son of Larmor, one of FingaFs 
u heroes, whose love she had slighted some time 
u before. Her romantic passion and beauty recom- 
** mended her so much to the king, that he had 
" resolved to make her his wife, when news was 
" brought him of Caracul's expedition. He marched 
" to stop the progress of the enemy, and Comala 
" attended him. He left her in sight of Caracul's 
" army, when he himself went to battle, having 
6i previously promised, if he survived, to return that 
" ni^ht. — The sequel of the story may be gathered 
"front the poem itself" 

The story contained in the poem is short and 
simple. Comala and her attendant virgins are 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. H2 

anxiously waiting for the return of the hero. The 
jealous Hidallan brings news that he was slain in 
battle. The shock proves fatal to the lady. Fingal 
arrives, Danishes Hidallan, and bewails the princess, 
whilst the Bards conclude with her elegy. 

It must be an obvious remark, that this little 
drama, of itself, could not have preserved the his- 
tory of Comala, of which it comprizes but a single 
incident. It furnishes no hint of the antecedent 
circumstances, without which the story is incom- 
plete, and even unintelligible. But if we suppose 
the Bard and his audience to have been previously 
acquainted with the traditional tale, this little 
dramatic essay might have grown out of its materials., 
as naturally as Shakspeare's King Lear arose out of 
the romance of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 

The same observation will apply to most of the 
poems of Ossian. And even Macpherson expresses 
himself, occasionally, as fully conscious of the fact. 
Thus, in his argument prefixed to Darthula: — 
" It may not be improper, here, to give the story, 
" which is the foundation of this poem, as it is 
" handed down by tradition." Upon a comparison 
of the story and the poem with each other, it will 
be sufficiently evident, that he has judged rightly. 
But, as this gentleman has not concealed his opinion 
of the antiquity and the authenticity of the tradi- 
tional tales, how can he assert, that the poems which 
have been founded upon them are the genuine works 
of Ossian ? 



113 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Again: in the argument prefixed to Carthon, 
after reciting the circumstances of a long tale, the 
editor adds, — " This story is the foundation of the 
" present poem, which opens on the night preceding 
" the death of Carthon ; so that, what passes before, 
" is introduced by w r ay of episode." But the epi- 
sodes do not include all the circumstances of the 
tale, which is regarded as the foundation of the 
poem. Impressed with this idea, which, indeed, is 
obvious enough, Mr. Macpherson decides, occa- 
sionally, in favour of the traditional tale, and against 
the authority of his venerated Bard. We have an 
example of such decision, in a note upon the War 
of Inisthona. — " Thus is the story delivered down 
6i by tradition, though the Poet, to raise the charac- 
Ci ter of his son, makes Oscar himself propose the 
u expedition." And again, in a note on Lathmon, — 
" It is said, by tradition, that it was the intelligence 
" of Lathmon's invasion that occasioned Fingal's 
u return from Ireland, though Ossian, more poetic- 
" ally, attributes the cause of Fingal's knowledge 
" to his dream." 

Does not the critic, in these instances, imply, that 
the poet perverted the facts, which he had received 
from these traditional tales — from tales so modern 
and so unfounded! The poems were therefore 
derived from the tales. But what need is there of 
reasoning from inference ? That many of the things 
ascribed to Ossian did actually originate in these 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 114 

popular fictions, is a fact, which has been expressly 
and repeatedly acknowledged. 

In some passages, already quoted from the notes 
on Cath-Loda, we are told, that the Highland tale- 
makers never missed to make additions to the works 
of Ossian — that they ascribed their own works to 
his venerable name — that they inserted incidents, 
and supplied deficiencies.* In a note upon Calthon 
and Colmal, the editor speaks of a poem which is 
generally ascribed to Ossian; but some traditions 
mention it as an imitation, by some later Bard: 
and he leaves the question undecided. 

Hence it appears, that Mr. Macpherson could not 
always distinguish between the supposed genuine 
productions of Ossian, and those of the modern 
Bards : and if this happened once, why may it not 
have happened in every instance ? 

The evidence of Mr. Smith substantiates the fact, 
that the poems ascribed to Ossian were thus con- 
taminated. — In a note on the poem of Gaul, one of 
the best in his collection, he informs us, — " It is still 
Ci pretty well known ; but the most common editions 
" (oral rehearsals) of it, are a good deal adulterated, 
" by the interpolations of the Ur-sgeuls, or later 
" tales." It is then an acknowledged fact, that 
much of the matter of these recent fabulous tales 
has been versified, and imposed upon the public, 
under the sanction of Ossian's name. 



* Let the reader examine Macpherson's notes, beginning with those on 
Cath-Loda. 



115 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Mr. Macpherson, with full confidence in his own 
accomplishments as an editor, observes, relative to 
these talemakers, — " Their interpolations are so 
" easily distinguished, from the genuine remains of 
iC Ossian, that it took me very little time to mark 
u them out, and totally to reject them."* His 
disciple, Mr. Smith, seems, in this respect, to have 
possessed all the dexterity of his master, as we may 
gather from his note, just now quoted, and from 
several passages, scattered throughout his volume. 

These gentlemen had conceived a very exalted 
idea of the merits of Ossian ; and therefore, they 
condemned, as modern interpolations, and ex- 
punged from his reputed works, every passage 
which appeared to them defective in beauty, dignity, 
regularity, or the marks of antiquity. But though 
they could distinguish the botches of mere poet- 
asters ; yet is it certain, that their sagacity would 
never have failed them, had a man of genius and 
taste equal to themselves, who lived after the revival 
of letters, condescended to handle the harp of 
Selma? We have just seen an instance to the 
contrary, where Mr. Macpherson's judgment could 
not distinguish between the genuine works of his 
favourite Bard, and the labour of a modern imitator. 
Where then is the credential for the antiquity of 
any part of these poems ? Shall we be referred to 
the old Highlanders, who repeated them? But 

* Note on Cath-Loda, Duan iii. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAft. 110 

they had received the fine heroic stanza, and the 
clumsy imterpolation of the recent talemakers, with 
undistinguishing simplicity. To them the whole 
mass was equally ancient.— So far, I believe their 
error was not great. 

It is strange that men of some abilities should 
have composed so much, under an assumed charac- 
ter. But such is the fact. It has been proved ; and 
when facts shew themselves undisguised, however 
strange they may appear, there is no arguing against 
them. 

Nor was this instance of self-denial peculiar to 
Scotland. The Irish poets, according to Mr. Mac- 
pherson's criticism, began to assume the character 
of Ossian, in the fifteenth century. Speaking of a 
futile poem, in a note upon Cath-JLoda, he tells 
us — iC It is something like those trivial compositions, 
" which the Irish Bards forged under the name of 
iC Ossian, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries/' 
And again, in his Dissertation on the poems,— 
u I have just now, in my hands, all that remain of 
" those compositions ; but, unluckily for the anti- 
" quities of Ireland, they appear to be the work of 
" a very modern period. Every stanza, nay, almost 
" every line, affords striking proofs, that they 
" cannot be three centuries old. — It is matter of 
" wonder to me, how any one could dream of their 
" antiquity." To these Irish u forgeries" we may 
allow that portion of antiquity which Mr. Mac- 
pherson assigns to them; and, accordingly, they 



117 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAtf. 

betray something of the rudeness of the times ; but 
had the practice of representing Ossian been 
continued to the eighteenth century, we should 
probably have discovered some efforts of a more 
accurate taste. 

In Scotland, it was continued to the very middle 
of the eighteenth century. " Within these thirty 
u years (says Mr. Smith), one or two professed 
" Galic poets have attempted it — one in Glendovan, 
u Argyleshire ; the other in Glenlochy, Perthshire. 
" But they had only gone through a few stanzas, 
tc when they discovered, what every competent 
" judge had discovered, before they had gone 
•* through so many lines, how unable they were to 
" support the character which they personated* 
" They immediately threw aside the mask which so 
" ill fitted them, and never afterwards resumed it."* 

These efforts of contemporary Bards, in different 
parts of the country, are sufficient to establish the 
fact, that it was a practice in Scotland, within 
these sixty years, to compose originals for Ossian — 
that only ten years before Mr. Macpherson's tran- 
slation appeared, the wits of Caledonia personated 
the character of the son of Fingal, and wrote Galic 
poems for him, under a mask. As men's talents 
are not always commensurate with their ambition, 
we need not be surprized to find, that two of the 
Scotch poets were incompetent to support the 

* Galic Antiq. p. 92, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 118 

assumed character, and wear the mask gracefully* 
But they had conceived the thing practicable, and 
their attempts were, undoubtedly, prompted by the 
more successful efforts of others. The subjects of 
such modern geniuses could have been supplied only 
from the traditional tales. 

We have partly seen the use which the author of 
the Galic Antiquities made of these tales ; but we 
have not seen the whole. He points out numerous 
paragraphs which he borrowed entirely from them, 
and worked up into the poems; This I had consi- 
dered as referring only to the English translations, till 
I saw his Sean Dana, or Galic originals. There I 
mark those very paragraphs which are avowedly of 
his own composition, wrought into Galic verse, and 
forming one undistinguished mass, with his genuine 
originals. Here then is a Highland Bard, who has, 
successfully, composed in the character of Ossian, 
since the middle of the eighteenth century: who 
has put into the mouth of the prince of Selma the 
acknowledged fables of recent talemakers. After 
this, who will venture to assert, that the language 
and manner of the Caledonian Bard are not to be 
imitated in the present age ? 

In the recourse which he had to popular fiction, 
there can be no doubt that Mr. Smith followed the 
steps of the former editor, who speaks of the tales, 
however modern and groundless, as constituting the 
foundation of the poems — who publicly boasts, that 
he could imitate what he has translated, and that 

Q 



119 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

he could equal his original. For all this, I give 
him credit ; but it remains to be proved, that, from 
the beginning of the fourth, to the middle of the 
eighteenth century, no Caledonian genius had arisen, 
who could have equalled the blind Bard and his 
editor. Mr. Macpherson did not, surely, mean to 
assert, that Scotland never produced a poet, ex- 
cepting Ossian and himself* 

It being an avowed fact, that many modern Bards 
had attempted to versify these tales, and produce 
from them poems and episodes, in the name of 
Ossian; and that one, at least, of the Bard's editors 
has supplied whole paragraphs from these fictions, 
and exhibited in those very paragraphs, all the fire, 
all the pathos, the ancient manners, the peculiar 
phrases, and all the originality of Ossian ; we may 
be permitted to ask — was it not practicable for a 
Highland Bard, of equal genius, in the seventeenth 
or eighteenth century, to exhibit in verse the most 
beautiful incidents of the same tales, in his own 
language, and with equal success? 

And if the affirmative be granted, shall we not be 
furnished with a more probable account of the origin 
of those little detached pieces, the whole of Ossian , 
which the Highlanders repeated — of those songs 
and ballads, which were perfectly understood, and 
sung to popular tunes, thirty years ago, than that 
which is offered by the editor — that they are the 
compositions of a JBard, who lived in the third 
century f 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 120 

Where the incidents and descriptions of these 
little poems and fragments were extravagant and 
absurd, the editors had a good opportunity of re- 
jecting them, as modern forgeries ; but I will again 
suppose, that the version had been made by men of 
equal taste and learning with the editors themselves ; 
then, of course, the modern forgery would pass with 
them for the genuine strains of Ossian. 

And that there were men of learning at a very 
recent period, who might have personated the cha- 
racter of the Bard of Selma, is fully evident. In the 
reign of Queen Ann, Edward Llwyd published his 
Dictionary, the first that had ever appeared for the 
venerable Galic. Upon this work, he received com- 
plimentary poems, written in the language, and the 
verse of Ossian, and by Scotch clergymen, who 
must have had a better opportunity of studying the 
art of Homer and Virgil, and the rules of Aristotle, 
than what had fallen to the lot of the royal Bard, 

And different Bards appear to have derived their 
theme from one common source, and to have exer- 
cised their talents upon the same incidents of the 
same identical tales . How can we otherwise account 
for the essential variations in the several editions, 
or oral repetitions of the poems, mentioned by Mr. 
Smith ? These are not like the usual corruptions 
of copies, where a passage is reduced to absolute 
nonsense, by careless transcription, or imperfect 
repetition : but, though the lines be totally different, 
in the several recitals, yet the same main subject is 



121 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

carried on in all of them, with equal clearness and 
beauty. Is not this sufficient proof, that the north- 
ern hemisphere has been illuminated by more than 
one Ossian? 

The author of the Galic Antiquities shall explain 
my meaning — " In poems, chiefly depending on 
" tradition, there must be, in different editions, a 
" considerable variation. Their comparisons jre-* 
cc quently differ ; but they are always beautiful, and 
" have the same scope. Thus, for instance, instead 
" of the above simile, many have here another, of 
" the same nature, taken from the strawberry."* 
Each of the similes referred to, in this passage, 
runs out into a complete stanza of four lines : it is 
impossible that Ossian should have given them both ; 
but such variations are just what we ought to expect, 
when several men of genius amuse themselves, by 
versifying and adorning the same incident of a 
popular tale. 

That I may have an opportunity of remarking, 
what I consider as a general error, in the editors 
of these poems, I shall quote the remainder of the 
above note — " Such as may here miss the dialogue 
i c concerning Cuach Fhionn, or the medicinal cup 
" of Fingal, will remember that it is of so different 
(i a complection from the rest of the poem, that no 
& apology needs to be made for rejecting it, as the 
" interpolation of some later Bard." Thus we ob« 

* Galic Antiq. p. 195. Note on Dermic!, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 122 

serve that these gentlemen, whilst they themselves 
compose original paragraphs for Ossian, continually 
expunge, from the poems which came into their 
hands, every passage that is obscure, extravagant, 
or puerile, as the interpolation of modern times — 
of the ages of learning and accurate taste ; and 
retaining all that is luminous, excellent, and agree- 
able to the best models and rules of the ancients, 
as the genuine production of a blind Caledonian of 
the third century. Is not this an absolute perversion 
of the canons of criticism? If there be any thing 
ancient in these poems, it must, surely, be those 
parts which correspond with the attainments of the 
age to which their production is ascribed, and with 
the taste of those ages through which they were 
transmitted, by oral tradition. But, I believe they 
contain very little that is older than the fictitious 
tales of the modern Highland Bards. 

We have seen that the poems do not comprehend 
the whole subject of their respective tales, nor even 
so much of that subject as is necessary for the 
perspicuity of narration ; but, on the contrary, the 
tales comprise the whole subject of the poems. We 
have remarked that the poems have been collected 
from oral tradition, only in detached episodes and 
fragments, while the tales, like written romances, 
go regularly, with an unbroken stream, through the 
whole field of adventure. And hence we have 
inferred, that the tales must have constituted the 
foundation of the poems* 



123 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

We have heard Mr. Macpherson, in more than one 
instance, acknowledge this fact, in express terms : 
and we may add, that upon the very face of the poems 
themselves, the author describes his theme as, " A 
" tale of the times of old — the deeds of the days of 
" other years," and declares it to be his province 
to " seize the tales as they pass, and pour them 
" forth in the song." 

Upon the whole of this evidence, I conclude that, 
whatever may have been the origin of these romantic 
narratives, many of the poems owed their existence 
to them. From the name Ur-sgeuls, by which these 
stories are distinguished, Mr. Smith takes occasion 
to denominate them " Later Tales," implying that, 
when compared with the poems, they are of recent 
composition. But besides that the tales are abso- 
lutely necessary to explain the poems, and connect 
their parts, it must be remarked, that the prefixed 
JJr, in the Galic language, implies not only Fresh, 
New, but also Generous, Noble, Heroic; so that 
Ur-sgeul may, with greater propriety, be rendered 
Heroic tale. Shaw translates the word, & fable, 
a novel, a story. That the Caledonian Bards re- 
garded the Sgeuls as something more than recent 
fictions, is evident from the constant use they 
made of them, as well as from some of the most 
beautiful passages in the poems ascribed to Ossian. 
Thus, in the poem on the Death of Gaul, I find 
them placed at the top of a fine climax, as the kind 
of monument which would be most faithful to the 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 124 

renown of that hero. The Bard, says the fame of 
Gaul, shall remain— 

" Till this stone moulder into dust : 

** Till this branching tree wither with age s 

*' THl this stream has ceased to run ; 

" And the spring in the mountain has failed : 

" Till the flood of time has swept away, 

" Every Bard, every song, and every pleasant tale"* 

But if these tales are not modern, when compared 
with the poems, their fabrication is, certainly, far 
more recent than the supposed aera of Ossian ; and 
more recent than his true sera, wherever that must 
be fixed. This fact appears from the glaring ana- 
chronisms which have slipped out of them into the 
poems. For we may collect from hence, that their 
fabricators ascribe, to the age of Fingal, every heroic 
action in which Caledonia was concerned, from the 
beginning of the third to the very close of the 
eleventh century. 

Thus the first great achievement, recorded of 
that hero, was a victory in Scandinavia, over the 
formidable Starno.| He afterwards beat Caracalla, 
the son of Severus, in the year 211. J His grand- 
son, Oscar, defeated Carausius, after the year 287.§ 
And after the death of Oscar, we shall find the same 
Fingal retain sufficient personal vigour to subdue 
Cathmor, the most mighty man of all Ireland, in 
single combat<j| The prowess of Fingal is not yet 
exhausted* He defeats the kings of Lochlin, who 

* Galic Antiq. p. 170. t Cath-Loda. 

% Comala. § Caros, }[ Temora, B. viii* 



125 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

invaded Ireland and Scotland, in the ninth and 
tenth century f and finally, he kills Magnus, king 
of Norway, about the year 1103-t 

Such evidence, of the most violent anachronism, 
appears upon the very face of the poems, and there 
needs no further proof that they originated from 
romantic tales, which had grown up in an age, when 
the aera of Fingal and Ossian was utterly unknown, 
and when the authors, like other fabricators of 
romance, could throw off all the shackles of chro- 
nology, and ascribe to a hero of fabulous antiquity, 
every splendid action of every remote age. I can- 
not, however, perfectly accord with Mr. Macpher- 
son, when he ascribes the tales, in a mass, to the 
unfounded invention of the Highland Bards, after 
their expulsion from the houses of the chiefs : for it 
appears, from the concession of the same writer, 
that the Irish nation possessed tales of the same 
kind, in an age when the Scotch chiefs had not 
discarded their domestic Bards. 

The reader has already perceived, in my nume- 
rous quotations from the Reliques of Irish Poetry, 
that there was an intimate connection between the 
fables of both countries. They agree even in their 
absurdities. The tales of the Irish, like those of the 
Scots, carry Fingal so far back as the third century ; 
yet, with the same inconsistency, which we remark 
in the sister country, they place him in the midst of 

* FiDgal— Battle of Lora. f Manos, Galic Antiq. p. 251. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 120 

the Danish and Norwegian invasions, and bring him 
into the field to oppose the mighty Swaran, and the 
better known Magnus, in the commencement of the 
twelfth century. If the Highland tales make Ossian. 
dispute with a Caldee, or one of the first propagators 
of Christianity, upon the subject of religion, the Irish, 
in like manner, confront him with their ^reat apostle, 
St. Patrick. In short, the subjects of the poems and 
the tales are often identically the same on both sides 
of the channel, and the two countries seem only to 
disagree about the question of property, in the heroes 
and the Bard:* 

Had these tales possessed the essentials of authen- 
tic history, or even the appearance of history, it might 
be argued, that they were traditionally preserved, 
in both countries, from the very ages which they 
describe. But as they contain numerous anachro- 
nisms and absurdities, they must be the work of 
invention. And, as it cannot be affirmed, that the 
Bards of two distinct nations invented the same 
individual fiction, it becomes a question, whether 
the Scots or the Irish ought to have the credit of 
producing the originals. 

* See Mr. Macpherson's account of the Irish poem, or Swaran's Invasion, 
or Duan a Gharaibh 31ac Slam. This is upon the same subject as the poem 
of Fingal. Cuthullin and Swaran, upon the same subject. Cath Gabhra, or 
the Battle of Oscar and Cairbre; the subject of Temora. An Irish poem 
upon the subject of the Battle of Lora. Compare also, the giants, enchanted 
castles, dwarfs, palfreys, witches and magicians of the Irish, with the giants^ 
enchanted castles, dwarfs, and palfreys of the Highlanders. 

Notes on Cath-Loda ? on Temora, B.i. and Diss, on the Poems of Ossiarij 

R 



I 



127 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Could we ascertain, which country had the honour 
of giving birth to the hero and the bard, who have 
been the subject of so much fable, we might, perhaps, 
approach the solution of this problem. 

Mr. Macpherson labours this point, with great 
patriotic zeal. Discovering in the collection of 
Irish poems, which lay before him, several allusions 
to modern times, and modern manners, he boldly 
pronounces the Irish Ossian to be a recent impostor, 
and positively asserts, that none of his reputed works 
are more than three hundred years old. All this 
may be literally true ; but it would have come with 
a better grace from the pen of another critic. For 
we cannot forget, that this writer is perpetually 
offended with the same unfortunate allusions, in 
the reputed works of the Caledonian Ossian. But 
here, they are only the interpolations of modern 
Sards — the heterogeneous mass is thrown into the 
editorial crucible: the dross is consumed, and the 
pure gold comes forth, with undiminished weight 
and unalloyed brilliancy. 

In a few passages in the Irish poems, the critic 
observes, that Fingal and his heroes are expressly 
conceded to the Caledonians; but it happens un- 
luckily, that, in every passage which he adduces, in 
proof of the fact, the names of those worthies are 
in a Scottish, and not in the Irish orthography, as 
Oscar for Osgur, Ossian for Oisin, <&c. When we 
recollect how much has been done, to support the 
claim of Caledonia, this minute circumstance may 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAM. 128 

lead to a suspicion., that Mr. Macpherson's copies 
had been prepared by a Highland '8enachy, and 
compelled to give testimony, not only in opposition 
to the general opinion of the Irish nation ; but 
contrary to the intention of the Bards who composed 
these very poems. 

Could we with certainty develope the true history 
of Fingal, it might, probably, be easy to trace the 
progress of the tales. But fable has covered that 
history with impenetrable shades. It would be no 
easy matter to ascertain his real actions, his rank, 
his country, or the age in which he lived : but to 
account for the popular traditions and poems, on 
the subject of his exploits, which equally pervade 
Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, would be no 
less difficult, were we to deny that such a hero did 
exist in some age and country, and that he rendered 
himself famous in his day. We may therefore grant 
the reality of such a character : but where shall we 
next tread ? 

The Irish claim him as their countryman, and as 
president of the knights of Leinster. The Scots, 
on the contrary, affirm that he was a king of Mor- 
ven, in the Western Highlands, who reflected a 
beam of unrivalled splendour on the history of 
Caledonia, in the third century. But so little are 
the traditions of either country connected with 
authentic annals, that, as we have already seen, 
they uniformly extend his martial achievements 
through the transactions of eight centuries. 



129 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Here must be fable on both sides : and I again 
repeat it, though the historians of Ireland and Scot- 
land might have equally recorded authentic facts, 
the concordant incidents of palpable fable must 
have been propagated, from one country to the 
other. In the present instance, who are to be 
deemed the plagiaries*^— the Irish or the Scots? 
This question has been warmly debated, by the 
antiquaries of both nations ; but as yet, it does not 
appear to have been fully decided, to the satis- 
faction of the public. I cannot expect that my 
inquiries will produce a final decision: yet, as I 
wish to rest upon some opinion, I shall, for the 
present, quit the subject of Fingal's history, which 
is either too dark to admit of elucidation, or else, 
wilfully obscured by national prepossession ; and 
seek for some ray of light from collateral circum- 
stances. Here, I think, the evidence is not wholly 
to the prejudice of Ireland. 

In point of public testimony, the Irish have clearly 
the advantage. Had it been asked, only sixty years 
ago — Who were the Fenii ; the unequivocal an- 
swer would have been, that they were the ancient 
militia of Ireland. At that recent period, the 
claim of the Highlanders was unknown to any but 
themselves. When Mr, Macpherson was preparing 
his first publication, the Irish had no conception of 
the existence of any poems of Ossian, but those 
which belonged to their own nation. Hence the 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 130 

advertisement in Falkener's Dublin Journal, of 
Dec. 1st, 176L* 

Mr. Smith, having quoted Mr. Macpherson's 
account of the Highland tales, adds the following 
remark — " Sir William Temple, who may be less 
" suspected of partiality, has, long ago, given the 
" very same account of Irish tales."\ The poetic 
tales of the Irish had, then, attracted the notice of 
Sir William Temple : and, though I have not, at 
present, an opportunity of citing the passage, I 
have seen some honourable mention of such nar- 
ratives, in a treatise of the poet Spenser. 

And long before the time of this poet's residence 
in Ireland, Mr. Good, a priest and school-master 
at Limerick, about the year 1566, thus speaks of 
the Irish people : — " They think the souls of the 
" deceased are in company with the famous men of 
" those places, concerning whom they retain many 
u stories and sonnets, as of the giants Fion Mac 
" Hoyle, and Oshin (1. Osgur) Mac Oshin, and are 
" so far deluded as to think they often see them. "J 

Notwithstanding this writer's erroneous ortho- 
graphy of Irish names, there can be no doubt relative 
to the identity of the personages intended in this 
paragraph. It is then a fact, that the Irish people, as 
long ago as the middle of the sixteenth century, and, 
in the remotest corner from the shores of Scotland, 

* Quoted at full length, in the Diss, on the Poems. 

i Galic Antiq. p. 127, with a reference to Temple's Miscel. v. ii. p. 341. 

t See Gibson's Camden, 2d edit. Col. 14, 21. 



131 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

entertained a general and inveterate opinion, that 
Fingal, Ossian, and Oscar, were ancient heroes of 
their own country — that the tales and poems of the 
Irish, concerning the actions of these worthies, 
were not at that period, regarded as recent com- 
positions, but as retained from remote times ; and 
that the very same mythology, respecting the souls 
of the dead, wkich appears in every page of the 
Galic poems, was, at that time, deeply rooted in the 
imagination of the Irish populace, as the remains of 
an ancient superstition. 

The claim, therefore, which the Irish nation have 
preferred to Fingal and Ossian, and their tales and 
poems, respecting their achievements, are not of so 
very recent an origin as the editor of the Galic 
Bard is pleased to represent them. The long nar- 
rative poems may be modern; but the Irish had 
their ancient war odes, which were certainly old 
enough, to cover all the traditions which the High- 
landers have hitherto produced. 

Let us hear what those traditions are. — Mr. 
Macpherson tells us, that some of the allusions to 
ancient history, which are found in Ossian's poems, 
have been mentioned three hundred years ago.* 
But he quotes no author ; he descends to no par- 
ticulars ; nor does he say, whether such mention 
has been made in Scotland or in Ireland. Dr. Blair 
had heard of some manuscripts and traditions, two 

* Diss, on the aera of Ossian. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 132 

or three centuries old, which mentioned something 
of Ossian.* But what the manuscripts were, or 
what the traditions said of him, we have not been 
told. Mr. Smith states it, as a notorious fact, that 
many poems, ascribed to Ossian, have been known 
in the Highlands for some ages back ; old men have 
heard them repeated by their fathers and grand- 
fathers, f Not one of these poems is named. And 
this gentleman cannot have forgotten, that the High- 
landers repeated the interpolations of yesterday, as 
genuine relics of antiquity. We are again told, that 
a few manuscripts are still to be found, in which 
several of these poems have a place — that a. Jew, in 
an old copy on vellum, are in the hands of Capt. 
Mac Lachlan, and a few less ancient manuscripts, 
of some of the poems, are in the hands of severals.J: 
This is, altogether, a very reserved kind of evi- 
dence. Why do these writers avoid particulars? 
Why not identify their authorities ? Why not give 
us the precise contents of their oldest manuscripts, 
or a faithful copy of some one of these poems, out 
of either of them ? It has not been proved, that 
these manuscripts and traditions, whatever they 
may be, originally belonged to Scotland ; and the 
contrary is very probable, as Mr. Shaw declares, 
in the introduction to his grammar, that the few 
books which he found in the Highlands, and few, 
indeed, they were, turned out to be either Irish, or 

* Critical Diss. t Galic Antiq. p. 93. % lb. p. 94. 95, Note. 



ld3 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

else, written in the present age, and in imitatioft 
of the Irish dialect. 

Whatever these manuscripts and traditions may 
have been, it has not been proved that they vouch 
for the whole of the poems of Ossian, or for a single 
specified piece, or a single paragraph, as it appears 
in the present collections. It is probable, that they 
only answer for something composed in Irish, which 
was always the written and the studied language* 
even of the Highlanders themselves ; or else, that 
they contain something more analogous to the state 
of Galic poetry, as it was two or three centuries ago. 

But allowing this evidence its full weight, what 
does it amount to ? The Highlanders have vouchers, 
two or three hundred years old, for some fragments 
of poems, ascribed to Ossian. Such a scale will not 
reach the beginning of the fourth century. For two 
or three hundred years, they may have had Irish 
poems, imitations of Irish poems, traditional tales, 
borrowed from the Irish, and new modelled by 
themselves, or versifications of such tales. It does 
not appear from hence, whether they had, or had 
not, retained some vague rumours of Fingal and 
his heroes, floating in the mouths of the populace, 
from the very age in which those warriors lived. 

But the absolute antiquity of the Irish tales is not 
the point I would now insist upon. Let it suffice, 
to prove their comparative publicity, and to shew, 

* Shaw's Introd, to the Galic Diet. 



Tliii CLAIMS OF OSSIAtf. ISi 

that they were old enough to cover all the evidence 
which has been produced, of Highland tradition. 
Their attraction was I'elt, some centuries ago, and 
they were rendered accessible to strangers, who were 
not conversant in the Irish language. If they were, 
thus early, communicated to Englishmen, how easy 
must their communication have been to those Cale- 
donians, who visited Ireland, and who spoke the 
very language in which they were written or recited ? 
or, if this mode of communication would have been 
too slow in its operation, I need not multiply autho- 
rities to prove, that, till within a very recent period, 
those Caledonians, who wished to become Celtic 
readers, used Irish books alone, and Irish masters. 
Did not these teachers carry with them something of 
the taste of their own nation ? Did they not detail, 
in every corner of the Highlands, and to admiring 
audiences, those heroic narratives which had con- 
stituted the delight of their own youthful years ? Did 
they not also carry with them Irish books, wherein 
some of these tales were committed to writing ? 
It is probable they did. Irish books upon these 
subjects have been found in the Highlands, and in 
the Isles of Scotland ; but who has heard of a High- 
land manuscript having been discovered in Ireland ? 
The contrary supposition, therefore, that the Irish 
could have furnished their libraries, with ancient 
copies upon vellum, for such they possess, from 
the unheard of tales of Scotland, is highly absurds 

s 



135 tHE CLAIMS OF O-SSIAN, 

And such was the obscurity of these tales, that 
they appear to have been utterly unknown, or totally 
neglected, where we should, most of all, have ex- 
pected to find some account of them. When Edward 
Llwyd travelled through Ireland and Scotland, about 
a century ago, to collect all the information he could 
procure, respecting the language and literature of 
those countries, he opened, at the same time, an 
extensive correspondence, with the learned inha- 
bitants, in order to assist his inquiries t he also 
forwarded copies of his printed sheets into Scotland 
and Ireland, before he had finally closed his work ; 
whence the numerous articles of addenda to his 
dictionary, which he procured from both these 
countries : yet we do not find that he obtained a 
single hint, relative to the Highland Ossian, or any 
of his family. In his catalogue of Irish manuscripts, 
this writer speaks of the Fenii, or heroes of Fingal, 
as the ancient militia of Ireland: and, had a different 
opinion then prevailed in the Highlands, he was in 
the way to have been set right: for he received 
poetical compliments on his dictionary, from no 
fewer than seven Caledonian Bards, who could not 
have so far neglected the honour of their country, 
as to have overlooked such a circumstance. 

Llwyd produces a respectable, though, by no means, 
a complete list of Irish manuscripts, in which several 
poems upon the Fenii may be remarked,* But while 

* Thus, in the Earl of Clarendon's MSS. Finleachi O Catalai Giganto- 
machia, vel potius acta Finni Mac Cuil, cum praelio de Fintra, Hibernice* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 136 

the libraries of Ireland abounded with manuscripts 
of poems, upon these heroes, the antiquaries of Scot- 
land did not enable the collector to record the name 
of a single Caledonian manuscript, upon this, or any 
other subject. 

Nor, since the question of Ossian has been agi- 
tated, do I find, that the public attention has been 
directed to a single existing copy of the venerable 
Bard, in either of the Scotch colleges, or in the 
libraries of those families, who had for so many 
ages patronized the Highland Senachics, Instead 
of jthis, we have been presented, since the sera of 
Mr. Macpherson's publication, with a multitude of 
learned dissertations upon the subject ; but the 
public had called for evidence, not for argument. 

That the numberless accounts of the Fenii, which 
the Irish nation possesses, whether in the form of 
chronicles, poems, or popular tales, have more of 
the character of extravagant romance, than of sober 
history, is a point which I am ready to concede to 
the editors of Ossian ; but still, I contend for their 
comparative publicity. They have, for many ages, 
taken deep root in popular tradition : they have 
employed a multitude of pens : they have obtained 
a firm establishment in national opinion : and, for 

CoUoquia quaedam de rebus Hibernicis, in quibus colloquentes introducuntur 
S. Patricius, Coillins et Ossenus. 

Again : amongst the MSS. of Arthur Brownlow, Esq. — Cath Mhuileana, or 
the Battle of Muilena, a Romance.— Cath Comhar,Cath Gabhra,Cath Code, 
Cath Atha Bo, Cath Ollarba,— Battles fought by the Fion Erion, or ancient 
militia of Ireland, and Fion Mac Cual, their great commander. 



137 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

some centuries, have been distinctly remarked, by 
those carious strangers who visited the country, 
and observed upon the manners of its inhabitants. 
But, on the other hand, the Highland traditions 
upon the subject of Ossian, if such have existed for 
any length of time, have been as remarkable for 
their obscurity, as the others have been for their 
publicity. Prior to the age of Macpherson, what 
Englishman has mentioned them, and in what 
manner ? Amongst all the learned members of the 
Scotch universities, and all the brilliant and patriotic 
writers of that country, what man, before the middle 
of the eighteenth century, has gratified the public 
with a single paragraph, upon a subject so curious 
and interesting ? Where was Ossian with his songs 
of fame, in the days of the great poet and historian 
J3uchanan ? Has he named the royal Bard, or 
imitated a single stanza of his fanciful poems? 
Since the reformation, many of the clergy, who 
instruct the Caledonians in their native language, 
have been educated in the universities of Scotland : 
they have had their taste formed by the study of 
the ancients ; and they are, generally, qualified to 
speak and write in English. In the course of two 
centuries, has not an individual been found amongst 
them, of sufficient discernment and taste, to per- 
ceive the beauties of the Fingal, the Temora, the 
Carthon, the Berrathon, &c. which he is supposed 
to have continually heard, in his own family, and in 
the families of his congregation? 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 138 

Some of the descriptive poets, who have written 
in Scotland, must have understood Galic, or, at 
least, must have conversed with those who did 
understand it. Is the Highlander of a character so 
very dissimilar from that of his Hibernian brother 
as, studiously, to have drawn an impenetrable veil 
of concealment over the charms of his native muse : 
or, is it probable that her attractions would be ab- 
solutely contemned by the Lowland Bard ? Surely 
not : yet who has imitated, or even named a single 
episode of the Homer of the North, before the 
eighteenth century? 

I have, indeed, heard of certain allusions to him, 
in songs, which are ascribed to names of some 
antiquity ; but these songs have only been collected 
out of the mouths of the people, within these fifty 
years. What kind of authority can they constitute ? 
The English peasant may suppose that his songs of 
Robin Hood were made by the man who made the 
rest of the Canterbury tales : but few editors would 
deem his opinion a sufficient ground for adding 
another volume to Chaucer.- — After all, what are 
these allusions ? Should we not have had them 
fully displayed, if they were at all to the purpose ? 

It must be remembered, that the poems of Ossian, 
when discovered by our editors, were not become 
obsolete from their antiquity. They were still the 
familiar companions of the cheerful fire-side. Not- 
withstanding this, before the days of those gentle- 
men, they were absolutely unknown to strangers — 



139 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

unknown, and unheard of, in a great part of Scot- 
land itself: and being thus obscure, it is impossible 
to suppose, that they should have diffused their 
influence over the extensive territory of Ireland, and 
furnished the general topic of national tradition — 
the general theme of poetry and romance, for several 
successive ages. Had they been at all known to the 
Irish, who are a lettered people, we should have 
discovered copies of some of them amongst the 
collections of Irish manuscripts ; but no such thing 
has been found. 

In both countries, the character of almost every 
individual, in the Finian family, is drawn exactly 
alike, excepting that the Hibernian heroes are of 
rather a more gigantic stature. The story of their 
actions is, for the most part, precisely the same. 
In both countries, the design of the picture is one ; 
it differs only in the style of colouring. And, as 
the Highlander cannot make out his claim to the 
original, he ought to acquiesce in the reputation of 
an elegant copyist. 

Much has been said of the peculiar stability of 
the Erse language. How can that stability be 
proved, without the evidence of ancient books ? 
Who can affirm, that the unwritten Erse, which we 
catch only from the lip of the present generation, 
has remained more fixed than the Irish, which, for 
many centuries, has been written, without much 
attention to modern refinement, as to its structure 
and vocabulary, and upon the model of its own 



the Claims of ossian. 140 

ancient Compositions ? The probability is against 
such an hypothesis. Yet the Irish poems, though 
confessedly far below the date of the fourth century, 
are preserved only in manuscript ; are known only 
to the laborious antiquary, and, by him, understood 
with difficulty, whilst the Scotch poems are the 
trivial songs of the illiterate peasant, in the reign 
of George the Third. Shall history, shall common 
sense, shall nature itself reverse its course, in favour 
of the Bard of Selma ! 

I may remark another strong circumstance in 

support of the originality of the Irish tales. The 

Ossian of Ireland, during his uphill progress, along 

the high-road of romance, and before he had reached 

the third century, made a long halt, at the age of 

St. Patrick, in the middle of the fifth. Whilst he 

was lingering at this stage, the Irish talemakers 

took an opportunity of marrying the Bard's daughter 

to their patron saint.* The abode of Ossian at the 

house of his son-in-law, and his occasional disputes 

with him, upon the subject of religion, were things 

which followed of course. But the Scotch senachies, 

without any such pretext of family connection, make 

their Ossian associate with one of the Culdees, or 

first propagators of Christianity, address several of 

his poems to him, and dispute with him, in the very 

style of his Hibernian namesake. They had received 

the Bard as an atheistical caviller, and they could 

* See Mr. Macpherson's Diss, on the Poems. 



141 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN\ 

not innovate upon his character. This is a clear/ 
proof, if all other were wanting, that the poets and 
talemakers of Scotland have imitated Irish fable, 
and consequently, that they are posterior, in time, 
to the Irish Bards who personated the venerable 
Ossian* 

These are the principal reasons, upon which I 
conclude that, where the Highland tales agree with 
the Irish, they are, uniformly, borrowed from them. 
At the same time, I admit the probability that the 
Highlanders produced some tales of their own, in 
imitation of the others, and in the manner described 
by Mr. Macpherson. Amongst those which seem 
to claim this original, I would distinguish the nar- 
narratives of victories obtained in Scandinavia, by 
Trenmor, Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, &c. ; achievements 
which have no other support, in history, or in ro~ 
mance. As for the poems themselves, excepting, 
perhaps, a few short fragments, they were produced 
in very recent times, either from this aggregate of 
Irish and Scotch tales, or by a direct imitation of 
Irish poems. 

The introduction of the Irish tales into Scotland, 
must have been greatly facilitated, by the intercourse 
which history acknowledges to have subsisted be- 
tween the two nations — by their connection of blood 
— their similarity of manners and opinions, and the 
absolute identity of their language : for the Irish 
and the Erse are so completely one, that, to this 
very day, the same vocabulary serves both dialects : 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 142} 

and, before die year 1778/" the Highlander had no 
grammar but that of his Hibernian brother. He had 
been hitherto content to regard his native dialect as 
only a patois of the venerable Irish. The kind 
reception of the same tales must also have been 
secured by the interest which the Irish themselves 
have granted to the Caledonians, both in the actions 
and in the family connections of their heroes. 

For the original invention of this mass of romance, 
the tales in general, I can account only by supposing^ 
that such heroes as Fingal and his worthies did actu- 
ally exist. But in what age? Here I feel myself^ 
again, carried by the current, towards that dangerous 
rock, the history of Fingal- — of a hero, whose brilliant 
exploits illuminate the plains of Erin and the moun- 
tains of Albania, for the space of nine centuries. If} 
instead of snatching the golden prize, I return with 
the emblems of shipwreck, I hope the indulgent 
reader, aware of my perilous adventure^ will com- 
miserate my misfortune. 

From the vast heap of confusion which lies before; 
me, I would select some grand, prominent point of 
the story, which may assimilate to some well known 
and authentic events : and, from that point, I would 
observe the bearings and distances of the irregular 
projections. But as 1 must not venture rashly upori 
an enterprize of such hazard, let me, first of all> 
consider the incidents selected by Mr. Macpherson, 

* There may be a trifling error in this date, as I observe my copy of Shaw'* 
grammar is of the Second Edition. 



143 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

for the purpose of fixing the sera of Fingal in the 
third century. 

Caracul, mentioned in the poem of Comala, was 
Caracalla, the son of Severus ; and the chief with 
whom Oscar fought, in the war of Caros, was the 
usurper Carausius. It may be admitted, that the 
fabricator of these particular tales, intended that 
Caracul and Caros should be so understood: but 
their adventures occur only in two of the shortest 
and most isolated of all the poems. But the great 
mass of tradition places Fingal in the midst of the 
struggle, between the inhabitants of Ireland and the 
Hebrides, and the invading Danes and Norwe- 
gians. Of this I shall speak presently, when I shall 
have examined whether Mr. Macpherson's scheme 
appears competent to support its own weight. 

Starno, king of Lochlin or Scandinavia, invaded 
Scotland. Fingal took him prisoner, and afterwards 
released him, and sent him home. The resentful 
king laid a snare for the life of the hero. He sent 
a Bard to Selma, to invite him to Lochlin, for the 
pretended purpose of marrying his daughter. Fin- 
gal went to Lochlin, and, with his small retinue of 
heroes, obtained two victories over the forces of 
the treacherous Starno, and returned triumphant 
to Morven.* In the next place, we hear of the 
same FingaPs visit to the king of one of the Orkney 
Islands, probably the same who is mentioned in the 

* Tingal, B. iii. and Notes ibid. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 144 

tale of Cath-Loda. He is again driven by a storm 
into Scandinavia, and has another victorious conflict 
with the gloomy Starno.* Our hero was still young ; 
but after all these martial and maritime adventures, 
it might be thought his age amounted, at least, to 
five-and -twenty ; however, in compassion to our 
author's scheme, I shall compute it only at twenty 
years. Upon his return to his own dominions, our 
hero hears of the northern expedition of Caracalla, 
whom he expels from Caledonia in the year 21 1. \ 
Fingal's age was now twenty-one. About the year 
287, Oscar, our hero's grandson, beats Carausius: % 
and after a number of intervening adventures, in 
Scotland, South Britain, Scandinavia, and Ireland, 
which must have taken up seven years more, the 
same Oscar falls by the hand of Caribar, and his 
death is revenged by Fingal, who, in single combat, 
and by the exertion of personal valour, kills Cathmor, 
the most accomplished hero of all Ireland. § Fingal, 
at the time of this engagement, must have seen his 
hundred and fourth year. The renowned veteran 
had borne his age well I 

But as the hero's years, at the aera of this exploit, 
might seem objectionable to some readers, the editor 
has here presented to our view a different scale. — 
H Before I finish my notes, he tells us, it may not 
" be altogether improper, to obviate an objection, 
" which may be made to the credibility of the 

* See Comala, and Notes. t Comala, and Diss, on the JEra. 

t War of Caros, and Diss, on the JEva, § Temora, B. i, and riii. 






|.45 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

IS story of Temora. It may be asked, whether it is 
« probable that Fingal could perform such actions 
8* as are ascribed to him in this book, at an age 
H when his grandson, Oscar, had acquired so much 
M reputation in arms ? To this it may be answered, 
I? that Fingal was but very young (Book 4) when he 
%\ took to wife Ros-crana,* who, soon after, became 
" the mother of Ossian. Ossian was also extremely 
5f young, when he married Ever-Allin, the mother 
V of Oscar. Tradition relates, that Fingal was but 
6 S eighteen years old at the birth of his son Ossian \ 
fi and that Ossian was much about the same age, 
" when Oscar, his son, was born, Oscar, perhaps, 
H might be about twenty, when he was killed in the 
*' battle of Gabhra (Book 1) ; so the age of Fingal, 
f\ when the decisive battle was fought between him 
U and Cathmor, was just fifty- six years."t How is 
all this to be reconciled with the other computation? 
The author forgets the achievements of Fingal, pre- 
vious to his battle with Caracalla, in the year 211, 
and the interval of 76 years, between that action and 
Oscar's engagement with Carausius, not to mention 
the subsequent adventures of the same Oscar. If 
the tradition mentioned in this note, be given up as 

* Miss Brooke, when obstructed by similar difficulties, observes, that the 
Irish poets represent Finn as extremely young when he married. The note 
concludes thus : "Our magical Bard conjures up such delightful enchantments 
that our attention should be too much engrossed by the grace and grandeur 
of his images, to count the knots upon his poetical wand." Reliques of Irish 
Poetry, p. 101. 

t Concluding note on Temora. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 146 

fabulous, it pan obviate no objection to the credibility 
of the story of Temora ; if it be admitted as authen- 
tic, the former actions ascribed to the hero must be 
matter of pure fiction. Caracul was not Caracalla, 
Caros was not Carausius, the whole dissertation 
concerning the cera of Ossian falls to the ground, 
and the age of Fingal floats at large, upon the 
ocean of time. We must, therefore, keep fast hold 
of Caracalla and Carausius, and see how the 
computation of the sera will affect our heroes, when 
combined with the tradition which is calculated to 
obviate objections. 

At the battle of Gabhra, Fingal was one hundred 
and four years of age, Ossian eighty-six, Oscar 
sixty -eighty and Malvina about the age of Oscar. 
That romantic traditions, when brought to the test 
of chronology, should exhibit such absurdities, is 
not at all extraordinary ; but it is extraordinary, 
that men of learning and sound sense, when they 
would dignify such romances with the name of 
history, should forget, in one page, what they had 
written in another. 

Let us, in the next place, consider the age of the 
Bard when he composed his poems, which was, 
we are informed, after the Christian refugees had 
betaken themselves to the caves and rocks of the 
Highlands, in consequence of the persecution under 
Dioclesian, which began in the year 303.* We may 

* See Diss, on the JEr$. 



147 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAfc. 

allow three years more for the persecution to reach 
the extremities of the British province, to establish 
the " dwellers of the rock" in their dreary abode, 
and to introduce the Bard to their society. We 
thus arrive at the year 306. Ossian was now ninety- 
eight years of age, and Malvina eighty. 

At these years the son of Fingal began to dictate 
the three volumes of admirable poems, which have 
been published by Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Smith, 
exclusive of the more considerable part of his works, 
which is unfortunately lost. The lady, at the same 
time, was still an exquisite performer on the harp ; 
her memory was so perfect, that she could retain 
poems of four hundred or four thousand lines, from 
a single rehearsal, and transmit them faithfully to 
posterity, by oral tradition. She was still young, 
still beautiful — " a fair beam of light, and the lovely 
" huntress of Lutha /" 

All this appears to me so utterly improbable, that 
I cannot help acceding to the sentiments of Mr. 
Macpherson himself, at the close of his elaborate 
dissertation, after he had fixed, and unfixed, and 
fixed again, the sera of Ossian. " What is advanced 
" in this short dissertation, it must be confessed, is 
" mere conjecture. Beyond the reach of records, 
" is a settled gloom, into which no ingenuity can 
" penetrate."* 

In one point, however, I am still of the writer's 
former opinion. — "The Caracul of Fingal is no other 

* See Diss, on the JEra. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 148 

" than Caracalla, who, as the son of Severus, the 
" emperor of Rome, whose dominions were ex- 
" tended almost over the known world, was, not 
" without reason, called the son of the king of the 
« world."* This I admit. But what had Fingal 
to do with the age of Caracalla ? 

I would offer the following conjecture, as an 
answer to this question. Though the Scots may 
have retained some popular rumours of their own, 
upon the subject of Fiugal's actions ; yet it is evi- 
dent, that they received the greatest part of their 
tales directly from Ireland. The Irish had a tra- 
dition, that this hero lived in the days of one of their 
kings, named Cormac. Their fabulous annalists, 
eager to admit all his romantic adventures, as real 
facts, having no room for one half of those adven- 
tures in modern times, and being quite at liberty 
from the shackles of authentic records, carried him 
back to the age of an imaginary Cormac, in the 
third century. The talemakers of Scotland, having 
received Fingal from their hands, as an accredited 
character of the third century, and having heard 
something also, of the expeditions of Caracalla and 
Carausius, which coincided with that age, had a fair 
opportunity of confronting the heroes of Morven 
with those Roman generals. But the main stream 
of tradition takes a different channel. 

Throughout the great mass of romances and 
poems, whether Scotch or Irish, we find Fingal and 

* See Diss, on the jEra. 



149 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

his worthies contending with the men of Lochlin^ 
that is, Denmark or Norway. These encroachers 
are here represented as not in search of plunder 
only, but of foreign settlements : emerging from the 
character of mere pirates, they were beginning to 
aspire to that of conquerors. Already in possession 
Of the Orkney Islands, and the western Islands of 
Scotland, they were now meditating the subjugation 
of the whole kingdom of Ireland. Swaran, their 
warlike king, made a descent for that very purpose ; 
but he was successfully opposed by the victorious 
Fingal : and the warriors of Lochlin did not accom- 
plish their design, before the age of those a littles 
men" who came immediately after that famous 
command erw 

If we look into authentic history, for a period 
which corresponds with this description, we shall 
find it only in the long reign of Harold Harfager, 
or between the years 870 and 931. The former 
part of this period coincides with the reign of the 
celebrated Alfred, by whose prowess, vigilance, and 
sound policy, the encroachments of the northern 
men, in South Britain, were effectually checked : 
and by whose example or influence, the Irish and 
Scots may have been induced to keep up a body 
Of disciplined troops, for the protection of their 
own coasts. 

With this idea, the office of the Fenii, as under- 
stood by the Irish, perfectly accords; It is thus 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. i50 

alluded to in The Chase, a poem ascribed to Ossiati, 
and published by Miss Brooke — 

" O Inisfail ! thy Oisin goes 

" To guard thy ports no more, 
" To pay with death the foreign foes 

u Who dare insult thy shore!" 

Upon this passage the editress has the following 
note — " Dr. Hanmer, in his chronicle, gives us a 
<e long list of the chieftains, under the command of 
" Finn Mac Cumal, who were particularly appointed 
" to the care of the harbours of Ireland ; at the end 
" of which, he adds — These were the chiefe com- 
" manders, by direction from Finn Mc Koyll, who 
" tooke further order, that beacons should be set up 
" in sundrie places of the land, where, in time of 
" danger, they might have direction for reliefe, and 
" to draw to head for their defence."* 

The great invasion of Ireland, in the days of Fingal, 
was that under Swaran ; in Irish tradition, Gard or 
Garaidh, who was, probably, no other than Harold 
himself. For it is a fact well known, that, in the 
former part of this king's reign, the Norwegians 
settled in several of the Scottish Islands. One of 
the editors of Ossian allows, that, in the year 875, 
Harold entirely conquered the Hebrides. And if I 
may presume to quote an old Welsh writer, in such 
company, we are further told, in the life of Gruffudd 
ap Cynan, a narrative compiled in the time of King 
Stephen, that Harold Harfager undertook two sepa- 

* Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 82. 
V 



I&£ THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

rate expeditions against Ireland ; in the former of 
which, he committed some depredations, and in the 
latter, founded a kingdom. 

After mentioning Harold Harfager, and two of his 
brothers, or relations, the narrative thus proceeds: — 
Xi And be it known, that the three brothers, already 
<c named, went to sea with a royal navy, in search of 
" military adventure, and at last they all arrived in 
" Ireland. Harold Harfager had already, before 
f* this, gone, with a mighty host, and cruised round 
66 all Ireland, and cruelly slain her inhabitants, and 
"robbed them, and made incursions through the 
" country ; and he built (or repaired) the city of 
" Dublin, and many other cities, and castles, and 
" fortresses, and fortified and settled the boundaries 
< c of his kingdom. And one of his brothers did he 
" place in one of the cities which he built, and which 
" is called in their language, Port- JLarg (Water ford), 
" and his heirs have been kings of the same city, 
" from that time to the present day"* 

I have not met with much detailed account of the 
kingdom which Harold founded in Ireland, and of 
the history of his successors, in that dominion ; but 
the notices which we have upon this subject, in the 
respectable chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarvan/f~ 
and other Welsh annals, are sufficient to establish 



* Welsh Archaiol. v. ii. p. 585. 
t Notwithstanding many accidental and trivial errors in these annals, 
their general authenticity is evident in every page, so that they deserve the 
attention of the historian of every part of the British islands. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 



152 



the reality of the events here recorded: I shall, 
therefore, quote a few of them. 

Between the years 910 and 920, Ireland and 
Mona were desolated by the men of Dublin.* 
These appear to have been the new settlers of 
that city. About the time when Howel Dda went 
to Rome, A. D. 933, Awlaff (Olave) lands in Wales 
from Ireland, with a host of Northmen, and another 
Gwyddyl (Native Irish) — he returns to Ireland, 
where he is made king.t A. D. 940, Abloyc, king 
of Ireland, died.J A. D. 961, the sons of Abloyc, 
king of Ireland, came to Caer Gybi (Holy Head), 
which they utterly destroyed, and took the shrine 
of Cybi with them into Ireland, where it remained 
a hundred years. They afterwards marched into 
Leinster, which they wasted dreadfully. § A. D. 988, 
Clumayn, the son of Abloyc, was slain.[| A. D. 999, 
the Scots (that is, the native Irish), wasted Dublin.^" 
A. D. 1010, 1013, Brian, king of all Ireland, Mur- 
chath, his son, and a multitude of other kings, 
assaulted Dublin, where Sitruc, the son of Abloyc, 
was king. The men of Leinster, and their king, 
Mael Mordav, took arms to oppose Brian. Sitruc 
hired a fleet of long ships of war, manned with 
loricated warriors, and commanded by a chief, 
named Taradyr, or Brodyr, to engage with Brian. 
In a battle, which was destructive to both parties, 
Brian and his son were slain on the one part, and 



* W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 393, 
§ Ibid. p. 491. 



t Ibid. p. 426. 
|| Ibid. p. 498. 



% Ibid. p. 487. 
* Ibid. p. 499. 



153 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the commander of the fleet, and Mael Mordav, on 
the other.* About seven years after this, we find 
another Awlaff landing in Wales, with a host of 
Northmen and Irish. | 

The age of Fingal does not seem to fall in with 
this period of Norwegian sway in Ireland. We must, 
therefore, go back to the time when the Island was 
only threatened with the tyranny of the Northmen. 
The first, or predatory invasion of Harold, men- 
tioned by Gruffudd's biographer, I suppose to be 
the same which is celebrated in the poem of Fingal : 
and I would offer some conjecture respecting the 
date, collected from a singular incident, recorded 
by Caradoc, and by all the Welsh annalists. 

*< In the year of Christ 893, the Northern pagans 

?' came into Wales-— and, in the summer of that 

" year, certain vermin, of an unknown species, were 

" seen in Ireland. They resembled moles in their 

" shape, and each of them was furnished with two 

" long teeth. They destroyed all the corn and 

"grass land, wherever they went, devouring the 

" root of every herb and plant, so as to produce a 

*' famine in the country. It is supposed they were 

te brought thither by the pagans, who also at- 

" tempted to introduce them into Britain. In order 

" to be delivered from these pests, the inhabitants 

" offered up prayers to God, gave alms to men, and 

" corrected the errors of their lives : and God sent 

* W. Archaiol. p. 395, 502. t Ibid. p. 502, 504* 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 154 

" a frost before the end of the summer, which 
" destroyed all these vermin."* 

The animals thus described could have been no 
other than a species of rats, which sometimes do 
great mischief in the North of Europe, though they 
could not live long in the air of Ireland, which is 
peculiarly pernicious to several kinds of vermin. 
The sera of their appearance must have coincided 
with the arrival of their pagan conductors, who, 
undoubtedly, contributed their share in producing 
the famine. These creatures had been hitherto 
unknown in the country. The fleets of Norway 
could not, therefore, have appeared much on the 
coasts before this time. But as Harold now cruised 
quite round the whole Island, and made descents 
upon all the coasts, these new visitors were generally 
introduced, so as to give the inhabitants, who viewed 
them in a portentous light, occasion to represent 
them as the authors of a public calamity. This may 
be deemed a trivial circumstance to bring forwards, 
for the purpose of ascertaining the age of a Fingal. 
I avail myself of it, however, as a confirmation of 
the point which I principally insist upon ; that the 
story of Fingal, generally considered, corresponds 
with the history of those times, and of those times 
only. 

In the days of that hero, the Norwegians were 
endeavouring to establish themselves in Ireland. 

* W. Archaiol. p. 483. 



155 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN, 

By his valour and vigilance — by setting up beacons 
in sundrie places of the land, where, in time of 
danger, they might have direction for relief e,' — their 
efforts were baffled, for a time; but when Fingal 
was no more, the race of little, or subjugated men, 
immediately succeeded. Agreeably to this, we are 
told, that Harold, in a second attempt, did establish 
a kingdom in Ireland, and, according to the nar- 
rative already quoted, left it to his descendants, 
Auloedd, Sutric, Afloedd, Sufric, Afloedd, the 
maternal ancestors of Gruff udd ab Cynan.* I have 
already shewn that Caradoc's chronicle has many 
notices relative to the affairs of these princes, and 
that, as early as the year 910, the new occupiers of 
Dublin were beginning to spread devastation over 
Ireland and Mona. It is not to be wondered at, 
that the inhabitants, now groaning under a foreign 
yoke, or smarting under the lash of tyranny, should 
have remembered their late valiant and successful 
protectors, with gratitude and veneration ; should 
have amplified all their gallant actions, and made 
them the theme of the heroicjtale, and patriotic 
fiction. 

There are other circumstances, which bring 
Fingal and his heroes to the same age. — Many of 
their victories are represented as having been 
achieved in the Islands of Lochlin. Romance 
places the scene of these victories in Scandinavia ; 

* W. Avchaiol. p. 584. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 



156 



but history whispers, that such achievements could 
have happened only in those Islands, bordering 
upon Scotland, which had been occupied by the 
men of Lochlin or Scandinavia. But where shall 
we find an historical period that afford probable 
grounds, as much as Romance requires, for the 
report of such victories ? I think it must be sought 
only in the interval between the subjugation of 
those Islands, and their peaceful settlement — after 
Harold's invasion of the Hebrides, in 875, and 
before the Norwegians had organized a general 
plan for the defence of their new conquests ; which 
they may be supposed to have done, about the year 
900. This people had conducted a fleet of con- 
siderable force amongst the Hebrides, exploring 
and conquering them in succession. But as the 
extent of the individual Islands was small, they 
could only leave a few settlers in each of them, 
with a military force, just sufficient to keep the 
ancient inhabitants in awe, whilst the bulk of the 
armamant was hastening to other conquests. At 
this critical juncture, before the Norwegian govern- 
ment was confirmed, a moderate force, arriving 
from Caledonia, in either of the new conquered 
Islands of Lochlin, might easily have obtained such 
momentary advantages as those which the tra- 
ditional tales ascribe to Fingal and his heroes. And 
the victories are ascribed to Fingal, because Fenit, 
or men of Fin, seems to have been a general term 
for the guards of the coasts, in Ireland and Scotland, 



157 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

though Fin Mac Coul himself could not have been 
present with all their parties. It may also be 
remarked, that the tales and poems sometimes 
represent the men of Lochlin, as in the act of 
assaulting an Island for the first time. Such atoms 
of history, therefore, as they may possibly contain, 
must be referred to the former part of the reign of 
Harold Harfager, and to no other period. 

Again : the poem of Carthon, one of the best in 
the whole collection, records the overthrow of the 
Strath Cluid Britons. Balclutha, the Alcluth of 
JBede, was destroyed in the days of Fingal's father. 
The survivors of that catastrophe retired further 
into the territories of the Southern Britons, and the 
city lay desolate in the days of Fingal. " I have 
" seen (says that hero), the walls of Balclutha, but 
" they were desolate. The fire had ascended in 
" the halls ; and the voice of the people was heard 
** no more. The stream of Clutha had removed 
" from its place, by the fall of the walls. The 
" thistle shook there its lonely head : the moss 
" whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from 
" the windows ; the rank grass of the wall waved 
" round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of 
li Moina; silence is in the hall of her fathers." 

The city is not represented as having been, pre- 
vious to its fall, under the protection of a Roman 
garrison: it had been governed by a native and 
independent prince. The incidents of the poem 
will by no means accord with the ages of Roman 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 15$ 

government ; but they are remarkably consistent 
with the history of the place, in the ninth century^ 
as it is preserved by Caradoc— u A. D. 870> the 
" northern pagans destroyed Alclud. — A. D, 890, 
" those men of Strath Quid,, who refused to unite 
" with the Saxons, were compelled to leave their 
" country, and remove into North Wales, where 
" they had lands assigned to them by Anarawd."* 
Such were, evidently, the historical facts which the 
compiler of the tale of Carthon had in view : and 
they relate to that very age, in which I have placed 
the achievements of Fingal. 

Of all the incidents of this hero's private life, there 
is none upon which the Irish and Scots are more 
perfectly agreed, than his marriage with a daughter 
of Cormac, king of Ulster, and nominal sovereign 
of all Ireland. But then, the Irish and Scotch tales 
carry back this Cormac to the middle of the third 
century, a very suspicious age, in Irish annals; 

For the hero who successfully resisted the Nor- 
wegians—who lived after this people had obtained 
possession of the Western Islands, and before they 
had established themselves in Ireland, we can look 
no higher than the ninth century, — the age of Alfred 
and Harold Harfager* And in this very age, his- 
tory presents us with a Cormac, a very religious 
and charitable prince, and the king and bishop 
of all Ireland. He died in the year 905/f Con^ 

* W, Archaiol, V, ii. p. 480, 482. t Ibid. p. 393> 484* 

W 



159 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 

necting this with what has gone before, I conjecture 
that this Cormac, and no other, was the father-in- 
law of the great Fingal. The different copies of 
Caradoc, and the Welsh chronicle of the Saxons, 
add that Culennan, or the son of Culkennan, was 
slain in battle about the same time ; or, as the last 
mentioned chronicle expresses it, in the same battle* 
The Irish name here intended may, possibly, be the 
same which Mr. Macpherson writes Colculla, and 
we learn from Temora, Book iv. and a note on 
Book vi. that this Colculla rebelled against Cormac, 
a little before his death, and that he was slain by 
Fingal. And the subject of the whole Temora is 
the rebellion of the nephews of Colculla against the 
family of Cormac, and their overthrow by the arms 
of Fingal. Till I find reason for altering my opinion, 
I shall, upon these premises, ground a conjecture, 
for I pretend to nothing more, that this hero ren- 
dered himself famous, in the former part of the reign 
of Harold Harfager. 

The Scots will object, that they have an authentic 
record of their kings, during this period; and that 
no such names as Trenmor, Trathal, Comhal, and 
Fingal, are found in the royal catalogue of the ninth 
century. These heroes have not yet been conceded 
to Caledonia : but, without detracting from the credit 
of the Galic Bard, more than truth requires, it may 
be replied, that upon the face of the poems, which 
have been published in his name, Fingal is no where 
represented as king of Scotland. He is only de- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 100 

scribed as chief of a desart called Morven, in the 
west of that country. Here stood his royal castle 
of Selma. This kingdom of Morven may have 
been nothing more than a small territory still known 
by the same name, opposite to the Isle of Mull, in 
which I suppose his Scandinavian hill of Gor-mul 
to have been situated. Our hero may have ac- 
tually been Lord of this filorven, and yet, as the 
son and the consort of Irish princesses, he may have 
commanded a military corps, whose province it was 
to watch the motions of the Norwegians, upon the 
coast of Ulster, as well as in the west of Scotland. 
And these are the principal scenes of his actions. 

In attempting to ascertain the age of a hero, of 
whom I can hardly catch a steady glimpse, through 
the mists of fable, I have availed myself of a few 
slight, but leading circumstances, which uniformly 
reduce him from the third to the ninth century. 
Should this degradation offend his noble relatives, 
in Ireland or Scotland, I must plead, in my own 
vindication, that I am still more indulgent to 
Fingal's claims of antiquity, than some of their own 
tales and poems, which recite his adventures. In 
support of this assertion, I will now produce a re- 
markable instance of the communication of romance 
between these two countries, and of the confusion 
of ancient and modern times. 

The antiquaries of Ireland, astonished by the 
confidence with which Mr. Macpherson had robbed 
them of their Qisin, and of all their venerated Fenii, 



161 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

began loudly to remonstrate. And in 1789, a 
volume appeared, which I have had frequent occa- 
sions to quote. In vindication of the cause of her 
country, Miss Brooke, daughter of the celebrated 
Henry Brooke, Esq. published her Reliques of 
Irish Poetry. This lady did not imitate the editors 
of the Caledonian Ossian, in stopping to compose 
her ancient poems, before they were publicly 
exhibited. She gives her originals, literally tran- 
scribed from old copies, and offered to the inspection 
of the curious, with all their imperfections on their 
head. 

The first poem in this collection is upon the death 
of Conloch, a hero of remote antiquity indeed, if 
antiquaries are infallible : for he was the son of 
Cuchullin ; and we are told by Mr. O'Halloran, in 
his introduction to this piece, that Cuchullin, and 
the three sons of Usneach, Naoise, Ainle, and 
Ardan, lived in the reign of Conor Mac Nessa, 
king of Ulster, about the year of the world '3950: 
that is, according to our chronology, about fifty 
years before Christ. The Caledonian Ossian brings 
all these heroes upon the stage, in the days of 
Fingal, a chief of the third or the ninth century 
after Christ. There must be a trifling anachronism 
somewhere : but be this where it may, the poem 
represents Conloch, who had never seen his father 
from his infancy, as arriving from the coast of Scot- 
land. He lands in Ireland, armed cap-a-pie, in the 
§tyle of a true knight errant, vanquishes several of 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 162 

the knights of Ulster, and is, at last, opposed, in 
single combat, to his own father, by whom he is 
mortally wounded. He then reveals the secret of 
his birth, dies with doleful lamentations, and is as 
dolefully bewailed by the unfortunate Cuchullin. 

I would just remark that, amongst these heroes, 
who flourished fifty years before the birth of Christ, 
we find the Norwegian name of Auliffe, or Olave. — 

" Quick let a rapid courser fly, 
et Indignant Auliffe cried." — 

The earliest Auliffe whom I can discover, con- 
nected with Irish history, is he whom GrufFudd's 
biographer introduces, as Harold's successor, on 
the throne of Dublin. He died in the year 940, 
according to Caradoc, who also records an Irish 
prince, named Congaloch or Conloch, slain in 950. 
But to pass over these and the like circumstances, 
which might give rise to conjecture, the Scottish 
muse has seized on the incidents of this poem, and 
worked them up into two episodes of the eventful 
poem of Cathula* a labour of Ossian ! Cathula, 
king of Inistore, or Orkney, had a son named 
Conloch, whom he had lost at sea, in his infancy. 
The babe was carried to shore, upon a shield, 
brought up by a Norwegian chief of one of the 
islands, accidentally opposed to his father, in single 
combat, mortally wounded, and then recognized. 
The lamentations of the fallen hero, and of his dis- 
consolate parent, are a mere echo of the Irish poem. 
■- ' ■ ... .... ... 

* Galic Antiq. p, 229. 



163 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

The only difference is, that one of the fathers is 
named Cuchullin, or Cuthullin, and is president of 
the knights of Ulster, whilst the other is called 
Cathula, king of Inistore — but tradition is not con- 
stant in this variation. — The editor of the Galic 
Antiquities observes,— " From the resemblance 
" between the names of Cathula and Cuthullin, and 
* both having a son called Conloch, many who 
Ci repeat the poem, in place of Cathula, substitute 
" the more familiar name of Cuthullin, and call the 
" poem by the title of ' Mar marbh Cuthullin a 
u nihacf — c How Cuthullin slew his son.' " 

The authority of one oral reciter is as good as 
that of another. Neither this apology, therefore, 
nor the difference of eleven centuries and a half, in 
chronology, Cuthullin having lived, according to 
Mr. O'Halloran, fifty years before Christ, and 
Cathula, in the days of Magnus the Great, king of 
Norway, can persuade us, that the two stories are 
not from the same origin. It is not brobable, that 
two fathers had lost their Conloch in his infancy, 
accidentally encountered and slain him in single 
combat, recognized him, as he lay upon the field, 
and then attended to, and uttered, the very same 
lamentations. 

But which of the two poems is the original ? The 
story of the Irish poem is simple and unaffected ; 
whilst that of the Scotch is eventful and artificial. 
Of the former, Miss Brooke observes, — " I have 
" not been able to discover the author of the poem 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIA.N. 164 

iC of Conloch ; nor can I ascertain the exact time 
" in which it was written ; but it is impossible to 
u avoid ascribing it to a very early period, as the 
" language is so much older than that of any of my 
" originals, the war odes excepted, and quite dif- 
46 ferent from the style of those poems, which are 
" known to be the composition of the middle ages.'' 
The Highland poem, on the contrary, is but just 
emerging into verse. — " As several parts of this 
" poem are supplied from the tale or Sgeulachd, the 
" narrative is more prolix than it is in the general 
" run of old Galic poems."* We have, then, pretty 
clear evidence, that the venerated Bard of Selma 
has condescended to imitate the rhapsodies of his 
Hibernian namesake. 

I have just remarked, that the adventure ofCathula 
happened in the days of Magnus the Great, king of 
Norway. The second poem in Miss Brooke's col- 
lection introduces this prince to our acquaintance. 
There we find Oisin entertaining St. Patrick with 
a story of his adventures. We are told that there 
are numberless copies of this poem in the hands of 
the learned and curious. The subject is an engage- 
ment between Finn and Magnus the Great, high 
king of Lochlin or Norway. Miss Brooke observes, 
that Magnus is pronounced in the Irish, Manos, but 
that the name, being a foreign one, is here purposely 
written according to the spelling of the original, 

* Galic Antiq. p. 230, note. 



165 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

She adds, that the language is too modern to be 
ascribed to any earlier period than the middle cen- 
turies ; and intimates a suspicion, that the Magnus 
of our Bard is the king of that name, who made 
some descents upon Ireland, about the latter end of 
the eleventh century. This suggestion I conceive 
to be well founded. For, before the eleventh cen- 
tury, I cannot discover, either in history or romance^ 
a Magnus, who deserved the epithet of Mor or 
Great, and who was Aird High, or supreme monarch 
of Norway, as he is styled in this poem. 

And if such was the age of the hero, I must allow, 
at least, four centuries more, for the production of 
a Bard, who could have been so utterly ignorant of 
the chronology of his subject, as to confound the 
ages of St. Patrick, Fingal, and Magnus, and to 
make them all contemporaries with Ossian : so that 
the poem could not have been composed before the 
fifteenth century. 

The argument is, briefly, this ; — Fingal, whilst 
engaged in the chase, is surprised by the appearance 
of a strange fleet upon the coast of Ireland. He 
calls a hero, to go and enquire who the adventurers 
were, and to demand their business. Conan, a 
bald-pated, cowardly babbler, makes some taunting 
remarks upon the peaceable disposition of Fergus, 
the son of Fingal, who, after a sharp reproof of 
Conan's insolence, accepts the commission* He 
returns, and reports the haughty demand of Magnus. 
The Fenii prepare for battle* Several heroes claim 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 166 

the honour of the day, which Fingal reserves for 
himself. Be vanquishes Magnus, in single combat, 
and binds him " on the blood-stained field ;" but 
afterwards generously spares his life, and dismisses 
him, upon his promise to abstain from future injury. 

The tale in this form, pleased the ear of the an- 
cient Ossian of Caledonia, who adorned it with his 
numbers, and thus furnished Mr. Smith with an 
opportunity of presenting the public with the dis^ 
grace and downfall of Magnus, in the texture of 
two poems, which occupy thirty-eight quarto pages. 
The first of these is the Cathula, mentioned above : 
the other is entitled Manos ; for Mr. Smith's oral 
editors had suppressed the g, in the middle of the 
name. 

The whole of the Irish tale is incorporated into 
these two poems. But, as it may be admitted, that 
the Highlanders add something of their own, to 
what they borrow from Ireland, I shall prove that 
they have a national claim to one of the incidents 
contained in this latter part. Let me, first of all, 
demonstrate the general identity of this adventure 
of Magnus with that which is recorded in the Irish 
poems. We here find the invasion of Magnus, king 
of Lochlin — the contemptible insolence of the bald- 
pated Connan — the commission of Fergus — the 
single combat of Fingal and Magnus — the binding 
of the latter upon the field, and his release, upon 
promise of abstaining from future injury. All 
these particulars the reader has already observed* 



167 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

in the argument of the Irish poem, the scene of 
which is upon the bank of the stream Laoghaire, in 
the original, Eas Laoghaire.* The Scottish editors, 
suppressing the quiescent letters, as usual, call their 
poem of Manos, La Eas Lao'aire, the Bay of the 
Water of Lor a. \ 

If we need a stronger proof, that the Caledonian 
Bard had his eye upon this Irish poem, it is pre- 
sented to us, in the close imitation, or rather, the 
direct copying of several of the verses. Thus, in 
the few specimens which the Scotch editor has 
given of his Galic originals, Ossian describes his 
brother Fergus : — 

" Db/ imich Fear'as mo breathair fein, 
11 Mar orra* shleibhte bha cliruth."^ 

In the Irish poem thus : — 

i{ Tilleas Feargus mo brathair fein, 
" Fe samhalta le grein a chruth."§ 

And again, in Connan's taunt over the prostrate 
hero :— 

" Cumaibh rium Manos nan lann 

tc S' gu sgarainn a cheann f 'a chorp. y '[{ 

In the Irish poem : — • 

" Cuingbhidh dhamh Maghnus na lathi 
" Go sgarfad a ceann re na chorp."1T 

In these passages, the Highland poem recites the 
very words of the Irish, as nearly as they can be 
supposed to have been preserved by oral tradi- 
tion. The Caledonian Ossian, therefore, not only 

* See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 64, 277. t Galic Antiq. p. 251. 
X Galic Antiq. p. 260. § Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 273. 

|| Galic Antiq. p. 263. f Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 276, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 168 

adopts the subject of his Hibernian brother, and 
repeats his very language, with only a slight change 
of dialect and orthography; but even employs the 
same identical metre, which was used by the Irish 
poets of the fifteenth century. This is an important 
hint : it must not be lost. 

The Scotch antiquary will demur to my opinion 
respecting the originality of the Irish poem. I have 
already offered some remarks in support of that 
opinion. I may now add, that the very metre, as 
I shall prove hereafter, gives strong testimony in 
favour of the Irish. And, as the dialogues between 
Oisin and St. Patrick were found in manuscripts 
of some antiquity, in the time of Edward Llwyd, 
I cannot throw them aside, in compliment to the 
detached episodes of the Highland reciter, which 
were, for the first time, committed to writing, and 
connected by the incidents of oral tales, in our 
o*vn age. 

If Fingal lived in the third century, which is the 
sera assigned to him, both by the Scots and Irish ; 
or even if he was coeval with Harold Harfager, his 
personal conflict with Magnus, king of Norway, 
must be the subject of pure romance: and if we 
attend to the progress of romance, we shall always 
find that the copy which is most simple in its plan, 
and least decorated with adventitious incidents and 
descriptions, is the most ancient. No poet of any 
country, having the Scotch tale before him, would 
throw away the noble flights of fancy which it pre- 



160 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

sents, and reduce it to the simple narrative of the 
Irish filagmis Mor. But on the other hand, when 
popular tradition had got hold of the latter, and 
embellished it with the decorations of a thousand 
tongues ; when a man of genius found the tale in 
this enlarged form, and began to model it anew, he 
may easily have produced the Cathula and the 
Manos of the Caledonian Ossian. And, if the Irish 
Bard is not the copyist, he must have been the 
author : for the tale is one, in its leading incidents, 
and we find several of the Irishman's verses in the 
Scotch poem. 

It appears, then, that the great Bard of Selma, 
not only makes his father enter the lists with a 
champion of the eleventh century, but actually con- 
descends to imitate an Irish romance of the fifteenth. 
I have hinted that the Manos contains one incident 
which is historical, and to which the Scots have a 
national claim. I will now produce my authority, 
and thus ascertain the action, and identify the king 
of Lochlin, commemorated in these poems. We 
are told that Magnus, after his expedition in the 
Orkneys, according to the Highland poem, or, more 
truly, into Ireland, agreeably to the Irish tale, made 
an inroad on the western coast of Scotland ; and 
this in direct violation of his promise. The brave 
Fingal, arriving soon after this upon the spot, 
found a neighbouring chief concealed in a cave, 
took him along with him into the field of battle, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 170 

where he encountered with Magnus, and mortally 
wounded him.* 

In the chronicle of Caradoc of Llancarvan, a 
writer of credit, and almost a contemporary)' with 
the northern king, we have the following curious 
notice, respecting that identical Magnus, who shot 
Hugh, earl of Chester, on the shore of Anglesea: — 
" About the year 1101, Magnus, king (of Germany), 
Ci came the second time to Anglesea, and having cut 
" down a great quantity of timber, he returned to 
" the Isle of Man, where he is said to have repaired 
" three castles, which he had formerly destroyed, 
" and to have garrisoned them, the second time, with 
6i his own men. He sent to demand the daughter 
Ci of Murchath, the chief man of Ireland, as a con- 
" sort for his son, and obtained her with a good 
" grace. He made that son king of Man, and 
" remained in the island himself during that winter. 

u The next year, Magnus, king (of Germany),! 
" set sail with a few ships, and began to lay waste 
" the coast of North Britain. When the inhabitants 
6i perceived this, they began to ascend in troops, 
u like emmets, out of holes and caves, to drive away 
a their stock: and when they perceived that the 
u king had but few attendants, they advanced boldly 
"'to give him battle. The king, observing their 



* See the poem of Manos at large. 

t He died A. D. 1156, W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 389. 
i I conceive the word Germania was introduced by some copyist, and 
that Caradoc only wrote Magnus Vrenin, King- Magnus, 



171 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

"motions, drew out his lines, regardless of the 
" multitude of his enemies, or the smallness of his 
ff own company. And whilst the Albanians, ac- 
" cording to their custom, were vaunting of their 
" numberless victories in days of yore, he engaged 
" them with disadvantage. The battle being joined, 
" many fell on both sides, and the king was slain 
" by the trampling of the numerous host of his 
" enemies. 5 '* 

The king here commemorated was Magnus, sur- 
named Barford, who, according to the Norwegian 
history, conquered part of Ireland, invaded the 
Western Islands of Scotland, and died somewhere 
in the British Islands, in 1103-t I presume he was 
the only Magnus, high king of Lochlin, whose 
death has been imputed to the Caledonians, by any 
page of history. Caradoc's account, if I may judge 
from its tone, must have been derived from some of 
the surviving friends of this prince," who seems to 
have been engaged, not with any regular force, but 
with an assemblage of the populace. 

According to my conjecture, the heroes whom 
the Irish and Scotch Bards have confronted in this 
field, lived at a distance of two centuries from each 
other : and I think the first compiler of the tale was 
led into this anachronism, by his ignorance of the 
real aera of Fingal and Magnus. He had heard 



* W. Archaiol. v. ii. p. 404.— From a copy of tiae fourteenth century, 
t See Hist, of Norway, in the Atlas Geograph. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 172 

some vague tradition of the Norwegian king's defeat* 
He knew not when it had happened, or to whom 
the victory ought to be ascribed : but in some 
remote age, the Fenii had been the brave antagonists 
of the men of Lochlin ; and the chief of the Fenii, 
as every one knew, was the renowned Finn Mac 
CouL Upon the accuracy of these ideas, let the 
antiquaries of Caledonia and Erin decide. 

The historical incident, quoted from Caradoc, 
affords, at least, a fair criterion, whereby to judge 
of the antiquity of the poems which have been 
ascribed to Ossian. Cathula and Manos present 
us with some of the most sublime and most pathetic 
passages which are to be found amongst the pro- 
ductions of the Galic muse. Ossian is never more 
beautiful, more original, or more at home. Here 
are examples of every species of his excellence, 
which is displayed in Dr. Blair's Dissertation. Here 
we have also the fairest picture of primitive man- 
ners, the allusions to Fingal's wars with the kings 
of the world, and all the antiquated opinions and 
customs, upon which the fame of Ossian has been 
reared. But, if the Irish Bard relates the tale of 
Magnus to St. Patrick, his imitative brother intro- 
duces the Culdee, or one of the first propagators of 
Christianity. This violent anachronism alone de- 
monstrates, that the tissue has been woven long, 
very long after the days of Magnus. With Magnus, 
king of Lochlin, must therefore necessarily sink, all 



173 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 



the internal evidence of the Bard's antiquity : and 
when this is gone, what support is there left to him? 
In vain shall we be told, that these two poems are 
not in Mr. Macpherson's collection. That gentle- 
man published and suppressed what he thought 
proper. Mac Vurrich, who had his treasure first 
committed to writing, came down to our own times. 
Mr. Smith's originals, as well as those of his pre- 
decessor, were collected from oral repetitions of the 
Highlanders, in the eighteenth century. They had 
the name and character of Ossian equally stamped 
in their very texture. They were equally accredited 
by national opinion, as his genuine productions, and 
equally favourites of the people. Remove one of 
these columns, and down falls the triumphal arch of 
the Bard of Selma. 






Section IV. 



■BBBBBBESBSaaS 



SECTION IV. 

On the principles of versification, in the Galic poems, ascribed to Ossian, 

The structure of Ossian's verse adduced by the favourers of his cause, 
as an argument of his antiquity— The form of his verse— its principles un- 
known amongst the present Highlanders — but taught by the Irish — and 
explained, by extracts from their grammars— that it was invented in 
Ireland— and borrowed from thence by the Scots— that it is not older than 
the fifteenth century— and, therefore, it limits the antiquity of the Galic 
poems. 

The system of versification amongst the old Celtic tribes — founded in 
rhyme and alliteration — remains of this system in the Irish Bards — and in 
some fragments of Galic poems— that such fragments alone preserve the 
character of antiquity.— A few concluding remarks upon the Highland 
dialect. 



Of the many arguments which have been brought 
forward, in proof of the high antiquity of Ossian's 
poems, one still remains to be considered. It is 
grounded upon the peculiar structure of the verse, 
and is deserving of particular attention, though it 
has been rather modestly insinuated, than closely 
urged, by the learned editors. 

Mr. Macpherson has not, in his translated 
volumes, indulged the public curiosity with any 
specimens of the metres of his author ; neither does 
he explain the principles upon which they are 
constructed : but he insists upon their general 
mechanism, as a circumstance which must have 
greatly facilitated the oral preservation of the 
poems. u The use of letters (he tells us), was not 
u known in the north of Europe, till long after the 
u institution of the Bards: the records of the families 
" of their patrons, their own, and more ancient 
u poems, were handed down by tradition. Their 
tc poetical compositions were admirably contrived 
" for that purpose. They were adapted to music ; 
" and the most perfect harmony was observed. 
u Each verse was so connected with those which 
" preceded or followed it, that, if one line had been 
(t remembered, in a stanza, it was almost impossible 



177 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

" to forget the rest. The cadences followed in 
te so natural a gradation, and the words were so 
" adapted to the common turn of the voice, after it 
ce was raised to a certain key, that it was almost 
" impossible, from a similarity of sound, to substi- 
u tute one word for another."* 

I know not how this general description could, 
pertinently, have a place in our author's Disserta- 
tion, unless it was meant, particularly, to apply to 
the metres of Ossian : and yet, such application 
must appear a little surprising to those who have 
learned from Mr. Smith, and Mr. Shaw, that hardly 
any two persons repeat the same poem alike. The 
contradiction, here, is not in matter of opinion, but 
in the statement of plain facts. Passing over such 
objections, and receiving the above paragraph, as 
it stands, we may be led to suppose some consum- 
mate efforts of art, or some happy developement of 
natural principles, in the structure of Galic verse ; 
and to wish that these principles had been elucidated 
by the learned editor, who speaks of them as if he 
understood them : but, from him, we hear nothing 
more. , 

Dr. Blair, who introduces into his Dissertation 
an account of Gothic verse, with a marked reference 
to the poems of Ossian, seems to prepare us for the 
contemplation of stanzas without rhyme. — " Glaus 
" Wormius — has given a particular account of the 

* Diss, on the ./Era. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 178 

u Gothic poetry — he informs us that there were no 
" fewer than 136 different kinds of measure, or 
f verse, used in their Vyses; and, though we are 
" accustomed to call rhyme a Gothic invention, he 
u says expressly, that among all these measures, 
■ e rhyme, or correspondence of final syllables, was 
" never employed. lie analyzes the structure of 
" one of these kinds of verse — which exhibits a very 
u singular species of harmony — depending neither 
" upon rhyme nor upon metrical feet, or quantity 
(i of syllables, but chiefly upon the number of sylla- 
" bles, and the disposition of letters. In every 
" stanza was an equal number of lines; in every 
" line, six syllables. In each distich, it was requisite 
" that three words should begin with the same letter; 
" two of the corresponding words placed in the first 
tc line of the distich, the third in the second line. 
" In each line were also required two syllables, but 
" never the final ones, formed, either of the same 
" consonants or same vowels. As an example of 
" this measure, Oiaus gives us these two Latin lines, 
f c constructed exactly according to the above rules 
u of Runic verse :— - 

" Christus caput nostrum 
" Coronet te bonis." — 

" The initial letters of Christus, caput, and coronet, 
" make the three corresponding letters of the dis- 
" tich. In the first line, the first syllables of Christus 
*' and of nostrum ; in the second line, the on, in 



179 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

u coronet, and in bonis, make the requisite corres- 
" pondence of syllables."* 

I have given this long extract, that the reader 
may have an opportunity of comparing the principles 
of Runic verse, with those of Ossian's stanzas, which 
will be produced hereafter. I do not find in them 
an absolute identity of structure; yet I perceive a 
closer analogy than I should have expected, between 
Celtic and Gothic verse. 

The want of rhyme in Ossian has been regarded 
as a circumstance highly favourable to his claim of 
antiquity : for Mr. Laing, in his strictures upon this 
Bard, adduces the rhymes of the Welsh poems as 
an argument, that they cannot be so old as the age 
to which they pretend. 

In the year 1778, Mr. Shaw published the first 
grammar that was written or attempted to be written, 
for the Scotch dialect of the Galic. In that work 
he produces the two following stanzas from Mai- 
Tina's Dream, as a specimen of Ossian's verse : — 

{t Thainic errach le sioladh nan speur r 
" Cha d'eirich duill' uaine dhamh fein ; 
u Cliuinic oigna me samh act's an talla, 
" Agusblmail iad clairsach nam fonn. 

" Biia deoir ag taomadh le gruaidhan Mlialmhin 
" Chunic oigli' me's mo thuiradh go trom 
" Cuim' am bheil thu eo tuirsach a' m'f hiamiis 
" Cliaomh Ainnir og Luath-ath nan sruth."t 

* Critical Dissertation, note. 
t " The spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of mine arose. The 
4< virgins saw me silent in the hall, and they touched the harp of joy. The 
" tear was on the cheek of Malvina : the virgins beheld me in my grief. 
« Why art thou sad, thou fairest of the maids of Lutha V 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 180 

Here, a stranger to the subject of Galic verse will 
discover neither rhyme nor alliteration, nor any 
other trace of artificial structure. He will be utterly 
at a loss to guess at the meaning of Mr. Macpher- 
son's connection, which would suggest a whole 
stanza, from the recollection of a single line ; and 
of his harmonious cadence, which rendered it almost 
impossible to substitute one word for another. The 
reader can only observe, that the lines are nearly 
of equal length, and that the composition divides 
itself into periods of four lines each. But this does 
not always happen: for the editors of Ossian are in 
the habit of striking out a lame or unnecessary line, 
whenever they please. 

But let us hear the Galic grammarian, upon the 
foregoing passage: — " The measure of Ossian's 
" poetry is very irregular and various. Generally, 
" he has couplets of eight, though they do not rhyme, 
" and seven, and sometimes nine syllables. These 
" feet are most commonly, trochee and dactyle. 
" The trochee occupies the first, the dactyle the 
u second and third, and a long syllable ends the 
" line."* 

In this passage, which is not eminently perspi- 
cuous, Mr. Shaw speaks of couplets; but Mr. 
Macpherson's term, stanzas, is more appropriate ; 
as it is evident, from the numerous specimens in 

* Analysis of the Galic Lang. p. 132.— 2d edit. 



151 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the Galic Antiquities, that the lines of these poems 
generally resolve themselves into tetrastichs. 

If we demand of the Caledonians some informa- 
tion respecting the principles of these stanzas of 
Ossian, so highly characterized by Mr. Macpherson, 
what must be our surprize, upon being told by their 
only grammarian, that " Galic poets never jet wrote 
u by any other rule than the ear, and certain pieces 
" of music ; and for that reason, though we may 
" easily see what sort of measure each piece delights 
" in, the uniformity of the same number of similar 
C( measures in every line, does not always return. 
u This may be easily accounted for, by observing 
" that all compositions have hitherto been orally 
" repeated, and which, by different persons will ever 
Ci be differently performed : whereas, had the pieces 
" been written, every one would have repeated them 
u alike. Even Ossian's poems could not be scanned : 
" for every reciting Bard pronounced some 'words 
" differently, and some times substituted one for 
" another*— Having no correct edition of any poem 
" in the language, we can only, in general, observe 
u what, measure the poets employ, and recommend 
il regularity and method to future writers."* 

Mr. Shaw does not attempt to analyze a single 
stanza of any kind of verse. He was, probably, no 
Galic poet: but his grammar was several years in 
preparing ; and his undertaking demanded of him 

* Analysis of the Galic Lang. p. 130, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 182 

to make diligent enquiry, and procure the best 
information upon the subject, that was to be obtained. 
We will suppose that he has done this, and that he 
acquiesces in the discovery, that the Caledonians 
had never possessed a national prosody. 

But the ear of the versifierjnust have proposed 
to itself some model, either of native or foreign 
device. There must be some rules to ascertain 
wherein a legitimate verse consists : some criterion 
to distinguish verse from mere prose. And if the 
best informed Caledonians are not able to produce 
any such rules, nor even a tradition that their an- 
cestors had ever possessed any rules of their own ; 
we must not only think them very incompetent to 
descant upon the beauties of their national versifi- 
cation ; but we shall also be induced to suspect, 
that their Bards only imitated some verse of foreign 
device, the principles of which ought to be sought 
for in another country. 

Mr. Shaw was fully aware, that the Galic had 
been abandoned to the caprice of an illiterate 
populace, and that, to such of his countrymen, who 
aspired to the knowledge of letters, the Irish had 
always been the written and the studied language. 
And ought not this conviction to have suggested a 
hint, that the language, which had furnished the 
Highlanders with letters and books, might also have 
supplied them with the rules of composition? 

In my comparison between the Irish poem of 
Magnus the Great; and Ossian's Caledonian poem, 



183 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

upon the same subject, I have produced instanced 
of the same verse, and the same identical couplet 
appearing in the work of the Irish and Scotch Bard, 
This coincidence exhibits an absolute demonstration, 
that the verse used by the Bards of both countries 
is the very same, in its principles and structure. 
Nor is this identity of metre merely accidental. 
Excepting a few short passages, which are adapted 
to some popular airs, and a few other anomalies, the 
printed specimens of Ossian, in general, amounting 
to some thousands of lines, are composed in the 
tetrastichs of those Irish Bards, whom Mr. Mac^ 
pherson confidently assigns to the fifteenth and 
sixteenth century. Some punctilios of Irish prosody 
may have eluded the attention of the illiterate* 
composers, and the more illiterate reciters of Galie 
poetry, such as they have been described by Mr. 
Shaw ; notwithstanding this, in every essential arti- 
cle, they have copied with success. Had the 
grammarian of Caledonia, therefore, compared the 
Galic with the Irish tetrastichs, and then consulted 
the Irish grammarians, he would have found an 
easy access to the Parnassus of Ossian. 

Is there no legitimate son of the Hibernian Muse 
— no grammarian of Erin, still in being, to attend 
to this circumstance, and, with one dash of his pen, 
to dispose of the question, respecting the antiquity 

* I mean illiterate with regard to Celtic grammar, and the rules of Celtic 
composition : in other respects the Highland poets may have been accom- 
plished scholars. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 184 

of the Galic poems ? Such a man might demon- 
strate, that one of these nations borrowed the 
laws of verse from the other : he might boldly aver, 
that his countrymen, who have written a host of 
grammars, did not derive their prosody from the 
Caledonians, who, till within these thirty years, had 
never possessed so much as the skeleton of a na- 
tional grammar. He might insist upon it, that, 
though the Highlanders, who look only to their 
Galic, are utterly ignorant of the mechanism of 
these tetrastichs, the case is very different in Ireland; 
and that the stanzas of, seemingly, a loose texture, 
as not being constructed upon obvious principles, 
are, nevertheless, extremely artificial, and the result 
of much grammatical refinement. And, considering 
by what means Ossian has been preserved, and 
through what medium he has reached the public, 
the critic need not be alarmed, upon the discovery 
of a few occasional irregularities, in the Caledonian 
Bard. 

Till our sister island calls forth a patriotic son, 
duly qualified for this task, she will forgive my 
wielding a feeble pen in defence of her cause. Our 
Welsh antiquary, Edward Llwyd, in the Brief 
Introduction prefixed to his Irish Dictionary, has 
given a considerable detail of the principles and 
rules of the Hibernian prosody, extracted from the 
grammar of Father O'Molloy,* and another in manu- 

* Published at Rome, 1677. 



185 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

script, by an unknown author. I shall present the 
reader with a few sketches from this compendium. 
1, The Irish Bards divide the vowels into Broad; 
as A, O, U ; and Small, as E, I. 2. Diphthongs 
and triphthongs, when employed in concords, gene- 
rally belong to the class of their leading vowel; 
but, in terminations, they often follow the rank of 
their concluding vowel. 3. The consonants are 
distributed into eight several classes ; thus, C, P, 
T, are Soft.—B, D, G, are Bar d.— Ch, Th, Fh, Ph, 
Sh, are Hough. — LI, Nn, Rr, M, Ng, are Robust.— 
Bh, Dh, Gh, Mh, L, N, R, are Light.— F, is 
Weak — S, Barren — and H, Hollow. 

In the various kinds of alliteration, introduced 
into Irish verse, the return of the same identical 
vowel or consonant is not required, it being deemed 
•sufficient to exhibit correspondent letters of the 
same class, agreeably to the above table. 

I must stop here, to make a few remarks. -~-Mr. 
Shaw discovers part of this system^ or of a similar 
system, in the rude and neglected Galic. Thus :— 
" The vowels — are either Broad or Small — «, o, u, 
" are broad — c and i, small.''* " Sounds are either 
<e quick or slow, rough or smooth, strong orjeeble.^f 
" In the Galic, certain letters have strong, bold, 
** smooth or solemn sounds. O and u are bold, 
61 strong, and solemn. The combinations ai, ei, are 
" cheerful and soft — ao is soft and solemn— eo, io 9 

* Analysis, p. 19. f Ibid. p. 127. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 186 

" are musical. Consonants likewise have their in- 
u herent power of expression. L, Bh, and Mh, are 
" soft and meek. C, G, Ch, Gh, are soft, sprightly, 
" and forcible. R, is angry and proud.''* &c. 

Whether such a classification as that of the Irish 
Bards, be founded in nature or not, it is surely, by 
no means obvious or simple : and I hardly think 
that a Bard of the third century could have told, by 
his ear, that Th was rough, Gh light, &c. ; especially 
if they were equally* reduced to quiescence, as in 
the present mode of pronouncing the language. 

But to return to the prosody. — Syllables are long, 
middle, or short. — Ai, eu t ia, and ua, are always 
long. The other diphthongs, and all the vowels, 
are doubtful. 5. Any vowel may be substituted for 
another of the same class, for the sake of quantity. 

6. The several sorts of Irish metre, now in use, 
consist of verses of six, seven, eight, nine, or, 
sometimes, more syllables. Two of these verses 
constitute a couplet, and two couplets, a stanza. 
All verse is composed in such stanzas, excepting 
some short lyric pieces, adapted to any particular 
tune. 7. Every stanza, and every couplet, must 
begin and conclude, without any grammatical de- 
pendence on any word preceding or following. 

8. There are five sorts of metre called Direct or 
Just metre, each line of which generally consists of 
seven syllables, admitting of the figure synalcepha. 

* Analysis, p. 128. 



187 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAJf. 

These metres require the following ornaments:— «* 
Concord, or that two words in each line, begin 
with the same vowels or consonants, or with vowels 
or consonants of the same class. This rule is sub- 
ject to many modifications and grammatical minutiae; 
as, that no particle makes or prevents a concord : 
that a concord after a verb is not approved of, and 
may be avoided by seven kinds of transposition, 
which are all described, &c. The next thing re- 
quired is Correspondence, or the agreement of two 
words in number of syllables, quantity of vowels, 
and class of consonants, as in the words roc, sop, 
lot i but the agreement of the final consonants is 
dispensed with in particular cases, Termination 
is also demanded ; or a correspondence between 
the final words in the verses of the same couplet. 
This is sometimes imperfect, and is then called 
Union. Next comes Chief ; or an agreement in 
the class of letters which conclude the two couplets 
of the same stanza. This is the hinge which con- 
nects the two couplets together ; and, as the same 
identical letters are admissible, as well as letters of 
the same class, it often produces a perfect rhyme, 
between the second and fourth line, both in Irish 
and Galic tetrastichs. 

9. In the kind of verse called Seuda, the first 
line of each couplet contains eight syllables, and 
ends with a dissyllable : the second line has seven 
syllables, and closes with a monosyllable. 



£hE CLAIMS OF OSSXAN. 188 

10. The Great Metre has seven syllables in each 
line, and the termination is always a monosyllable : 
it requires an Union between the final words of the 
second and fourth line. 

11. The Small Metre has the like Union between 
the terminations of the second and fourth; but 
concludes each line with a dissyllable. 

12. The laws of verse, as described by my author, 
are so numerous and punctilious, that they must 
have rendered the composition of regular verse, very 
difficult, notwithstanding the variety of exceptions 
and licences which are authorized. The Bards have 
therefore devised a kind of stanza, called Oglathas, 
in imitation of either of the preceding metres, only 
that it dispenses with true correspondence and true 
union, contenting itself with producing the same 
general effect upon the ear, with the more rigid 
metres. This must be very convenient for the in- 
dolent, illiterate, or less accurate Bard. And many 
of the stanzas of Ossian, as they are now brought 
forward, will be found to muster under this banner. 

It appears from these extracts, that the Irish 
muse delights in a variety of correspondent sounds. 
Yet these are not direct alliterations, which ob- 
viously strike the ear, as in the old Runic poetry ; 
but are regulated according to the table of classes 
which I have given above. So that the composition 
of a regular stanza, which leaves so slight a percep- 
tion of harmony upon the organs of a stranger, is 
frequently a thing of difficult accomplishment. 



189 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

This prosody delivers also a variety of rules* 
respecting the number of syllables in the concluding 
word of each line, and the agreement between the 
terminations of the several verses in each stanza ; 
all which are either exactly copied by the Caledo- 
nian Bards, or else imitated, with such equivalent 
conceits, as to impress full conviction upon the 
mind, that both nations versified upon the very same 
system, and that the model is found in the Irish 
grammars of the seventeenth century, and in the 
practice of Irish Bards, perhaps for an age or two 
preceding that period. Of the principles and struc- 
ture of this verse, the few particulars which I have 
extracted may serve to communicate a general idea* 
If the reader wishes for more information upon the 
subject, I must refer him to my author, or to the 
Irish grammars of the seventeenth century. 

Puerile as some of these laws of verse may appear, 
they were evidently the invention of a people who 
applied closely to the study of letters, however they 
may have perverted the use of them. This appears 
upon the hypothesis, that the words were pro- 
nounced as they are written. But if we suppose 
that the Irish pronunciation has remained fixed, as 
it is at present, from the time when these laws 
were ratified, their invention must have been utterly 
impossible to illiterate genius : for there are several 
of these laws which apply only to the eye, and 
escape the cognizance of the most accurate ear. 
Elements which return precisely the same sound, or 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 190 

no sound at all, from the mouth of an Hibernian 
or Caledonian speaker, are disposed in separate 
classes, by the edicts of the Bards. 

For the better comprehension of my meaning, it 
may be proper in this place, to acquaint the reader, 
that the Irish, of our days, entirely suppress the 
sound of several of their aspirated consonants, and 
run the vowels which precede, and those which follow 
such consonants, all into one syllable, pronouncing 
Aghaidh as yi ; Amhuil as Awl, &c. But this 
seems to me to be a modern corruption. It could 
hardly have been the case, when the system of pro- 
sody, now before us, was first adjusted. And in 
some of the older Irish poems, which were composed 
with full sounding alliterations, this corruption of 
oral language, appears more forcibly. For in the 
modem copies of those poems, we often find one 
consonant retaining its due sound, whilst that which 
ought to be its correspondent, is rendered absolutely 
quiescent, by a point placed over it, or an h sub- 
joined. 

It was the decided opinion of Edward Llwyd, 
that the ancient Irish did, distinctly, pronounce all 
their aspirated consonants : and, if my recollection 
does not deceive me, Mr. Walker, author of the 
Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, declares 
that, as late as the fifteenth century, the laws of 
metre required that all the aspirates should be 
distinctly pronounced. 

A A 



191 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Whenever a living and oral language differs 
materially from its ancient orthography, it may be 
received as a general maxim* that the latter is cor- 
rupted or changed: for why should letters have 
been introduced, that were not essential to their 
appropriate words ; and how could they have been 
essential, if they did not represent certain sounds, 
at the time of their introduction ? why should the 
old Irish have written Aghaidh or Agaid, if the 
sound intended to be expressed was nothing more 
than yi ? 

For the corruption of Irish enunciation, Mr. Shaw 
accounts, very probably, in the introduction to his 
grammar. u Though there were English colonies 
" in Ireland, the Gael (ancient inhabitants) of that 
C( country enjoyed their own laws and customs, till 
" the reigns of Elizabeth, and James the first, wheu 
iC the English laws were universally established* 
<c Then, for the first time, the Galic ceased to be 
Ci spoken, by the chiefs of families, and at court. 
" English schools were erected, with strict injunc- 
** tions, that the vernacular language should no 
" longer be spoken, in those seminaries." The 
Irish language was, of course, abandoned to the 
caprice of the populace. 

Agreeably to this, we learn from Miss Brooke's 
JReliques, that during the eighteenth century, this 
language was in such low estimation, that their 
favourite Bards were such as had been deprived of 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 102 

sight, in their infancy, and, consequently, were 
absolutely illiterate. 

This venerable tongue having thus been at the 
mercy of the vulgar for two centuries, the natural 
consequences have ensued. The populace gene- 
rally abridge the labour of speaking. In the 
borders of Wales, where the gentlemen despise the 
Cambro-British, and the people understand just 
English enough, to dispense with Divine service 
in their native tongue, how often do we hear such 
phrases as — " Be' sy' dalu," instead of " Beth sydd 
i dalu," What is to pay?—" Ble i' ch' i' myn'd," 
for " 1 ba le ydych chwi yn myned,'' Where are you 
going, &c. So the English peasant says, " Icanna" 
for I cannot ; (C Le ma ha'n woot,'' for, Let me have 
it, will you, &c. As we appeal from all such 
jargons as these, to the Welsh and English lan- 
guages, as written and spoken by persons better 
informed, so I would appeal from the " fragmina 
vocum'' of the peasant of Erin, to the orthography 
of Irish books. 

At all events, those laws of verse, which we have 
been considering, were not the invention of a nation 
which had no established orthography — they could 
not have been observed by the illiterate versifier— 
they could not have been the device of the ancient 
Celtse, a people who were never studious of letters. 

In Ossian, a Caledonian of the third century, we 
should naturally look for a versification, constructed 
upon the most simple and obvious principles, such, 



193 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

for instance, as the stated return of similar sounds, 
which make a forcible impression upon the ear : we 
should expect a measure that did not depend upon 
minute grammatical distinctions. But these tetras- 
tichs were clearly the invention of the Irish, who 
compiled several grammatical tracts between the 
fifteenth and seventeenth century; and in whose 
grammars alone their principles are to be found. 

Upon what grounds can this proposition be 
denied ? The system of versification which was 
used both by the Scotch and Irish Bards, being the 
very same, we must either suppose, that a people 
comparatively learned, and who, for several ages, 
diligently studied the structure of their native lan- 
guage, borrowed a prosody, constructed upon the 
most minute grammatical and orthographical rules, 
from a nation who, confessedly, never possessed 
either grammar, orthography, or prosody of their 
own, or else we must admit the contrary. 

And as I apprehend the mind of every unpre- 
judiced man will, immediately, take the latter 
direction, it must follow, that the poems ascribed 
to Ossian could have had no existence before the 
Irish Bards had digested their present system of 
prosody, and the Scotch had learned to imitate their 
versification. 

The history of the invention of this system is 
somewhat obscure ; but it is evidently of no ancient 
date. It could have had no being till after the Irish 
had established the custom of regularly distinguish- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 194 

ing their aspirated consonants by a particular mark, 
which they first began to do about the twelfth 
century, when the admixture of Englishmen with 
the native inhabitants rendered such a distinction 
necessary. It must have originated after the intro- 
duction of exotic learning into Ireland, and after that 
learning had deviated from the road of important 
research, in pursuit of curious trifles. In short, its 
birth seems to have coincided with the expiring 
moments of Erin's literary fame. The oldest ex- 
amples of stanzas, constructed upon this system, 
are found in those romantic poems which bear the 
name of Qisin, and which Mr. Macpherson posi- 
tively, and with apparent accuracy, ascribes to the 
Bards of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. And 
there can be no doubt that the practice of the Bards 
accompanied the several stages of their invention. 
The completion of this scheme cannot be carried 
farther back than the fifteenth century : for, in 
pieces which preceded that age, at a short interval, 
it appears unformed, and in its embryo state. And, 
in poems which are still more ancient, the structure 
of Irish verse is totally different. This will be seen 
hereafter. But the poems of Qssian, published by 
Mr. Smith, and those fragments of Mr. Macpher- 
son's originals, which have been allowed to see the 
light, exactly resemble, in the structure of their 
verse, the tetrastich form of the modern Irish Bards. 
In some instances, a few deviations may be re- 
marked. But these are such only as may be found 



195 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

in the less accurate Bards of the Irish themselves, 
and such as might be expected in the works of any 
unlearned versifier, who should attempt to imitate 
measures, of a structure so very artificial and intri- 
cate. In the Caledonian poems, these irregularities 
may have been increased, by the faulty recital of 
persons who had no idea of any rules of verse what- 
soever, or by the corruptions of Galic orthography. 
And after all, the general model is preserved. 

The Highland poet, instead of placing before him 
a table of classifications, which, in many instances, 
addressed itself only to the eye, may have, occa- 
sionally, aimed at nothing more than to produce 
the same kind of audible harmony, by the mere 
assistance of his ear, and the same measure and 
cadence which he perceived in the Irish stanzas. 

Thus a schoolboy, whilst a novice in his Cfradus, 
may make half a dozen false quantities, in a copy 
of hexameters and pentameters ; but still, it will be 
easy to ascertain the species of verse which he has 
aimed to produce. I think there can be no incon- 
sistency in supposing that a Highland poet has 
sufficient general learning, to improve upon the 
plan of old Irish poems, whilst, at the same time, 
he may not be a perfect adept in Irish versification.* 



* I had in this place, analyzed some of the stanzas in the Galic An- 
tiquities; but as Mr. Macpherson's originals are now before the public, they 
may afford a more satisfactory opportunity of illustrating my argument* 
The reader is therefore referred to my first additional section. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 196 

If any doubt should remain, as to the position here 
laid down ; if any specimens of the unedited Ossian, 
which differ more essentially from the structure of 
modern Irish tetrastichs, be quoted against me, I 
only ask, that the morsels of lyric measure be 
excepted, and that the specimens be fairly copied 
from manuscripts as old, at least, as the middle of 
the eighteenth century, in order to guard against 
injury, from the carelessness of oral reciters, or the 
abundant care of editors. And let a due comparison 
with Irish stanzas determine the question, 

Till these vouchers be produced, and their testi- 
mony substantiated, I must be allowed to observe, 
upon the evidence that has already appeared — That 
the measures of Ossian's poems are essentially the 
same as those which are found in the works of the 
Irish Bards : that these measures arise from prin- 
ciples which are developed in the grammars of the 
Irish, as deduced from the practice of their national 
poets : that the application of these principles 
demand such a variety of punctilious grammatical 
observations, as to render it evident, that they were 
the invention of a people who studied the grammar 
of their own language ; whereas the Highlanders, 
the only people who use the same language with the 
Irish, never reduced their native dialect to any 
grammatical rules, before the year 1778. It follows, 
that the measures employed in Ossian's poems, are 
undoubtedly the invention of the Irish. 



197 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

But as the original inventors were, certainly, the 
first people who used these measures, they must 
have appeared in Irish poems, before they could 
have been known in Caledonia. And the Irish 
never used them before the fifteenth century. Not 
a single fragment, therefore, of the Caledonian 
Ossian, in which these measures are either copied 
or imitated, can possibly be ascribed to any earlier 
period. 

Notwithstanding, therefore, all that has been 
brought forward, relative to the high antiquity of 
Ossian, and his primitive metres, we have still to 
inquire for the mode of versification used by the 
ancient Celtic tribes. 

The language of the passions is not less natural 
to man than the passions themselves : so that I can 
hardly conceive the existence of a nation, which had 
not some idea of poetry ; but, whatever may be 
objected upon this head, it is certain that the Celtae 
had their poets. And though it should not appear, 
at first sight, that verse is essential to poetry, yet 
we have the best authority to assert, that the poets 
of the Celtae, like those of most other nations, did 
compose in verse, upon whatever principle it was 
constructed. 

For the universality of this concomitant of poetry, 
even amongst the barbarous nations, the following 
reason may be assigned. When we utter a single 
sentence, expressive of any passion, affection, or 
sudden emotion of the mind, nature dictates a 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 198 

corresponding tone and modulation of the voice. 
Such modulations, however rude and simple we may 
suppose them to have been, amongst the primitive 
nations, may be regarded as natural music, and the 
foundation of that art; which study and cultivation 
have rendered so exquisite. 

The first Bard, whether his subject was devotion, 
a victory, love or grief, uttered his ardent feeling, 
accompanied with an artless modulation. Emotion 
and passion delight in short sentences : this modu- 
lation had, therefore, its limited compass : and if 
the theme called for a second or a third strain, the 
very repetition of the tune would suggest a sentence 
of nearly the same length and cadence. Such divi- 
sions of poetic language, having been once pointed 
out, by the hand of nature, the way was open for 
gradual improvement ; for the acquisition of regu- 
larity and ornament, all which were introduced, 
when poetry began to be studied as an art. 

Then the poets of every country established such 
rules of versification as were suggested by the genius 
of their language, or such as their own taste and 
dexterity could devise. But as art, by this time, 
began to supersede nature, we might expect to find 
different principles of versification prevailing in the 
great primitive nations. The most ancient speci- 
mens of verse, which we have at present, are found 
in some parts of the old testament. And Dr. Hare, 
in his edition of the Psalms, has rendered it probable, 
that Hebrew verse was regulated by a determinate 

B £ 



199 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

number of syllables, or even by poetic feet; but 
owing to our ignorance of the true pronunciation of 
that language, the fact seems to be incapable of 
absolute demonstration. We also find, in the sacred 
poets, frequent alliterations and final rhymes. It 
is evident that these were by no means avoided, as 
blemishes, though we do not perceive their constant 
return, with that regularity which might warrant 
the conclusion, that they were studied as necessary 
appendages of verse. All that we can positively 
assert is, that the several periods of the same sacred 
poem are nearly of equal length; and that there is, 
generally, a kind of harmonious relation between 
the thoughts, or sentiments, expressed in the dif- 
ferent members of the same period. 

The Greeks and Romans, and some of the Asiatic 
nations, measuring the exact time or quantity of all 
their syllables, disposed them into feet of deter- 
minate length, which they employed in the con- 
struction of verse, and lyric strophes, of unrivalled 
harmony. 

The Gothic nations, a people who were barely 
acquainted with letters, contented themselves with 
the simple device of numbering the syllables in 
every line, and decorating every couplet, or stanza, 
with a determinate number of strong alliterations, 
which made an immediate and forcible impression 
upon the uncultivated ear. This obvious contri- 
vance is exemplified in the Latin distich of Wor- 
mius, already recited, and may be remarked in the 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 200 

following lines of the Voluspa, the oldest of their 
poems now extant : — 

23r<edor mono fterias 
Oc at ftonom verda 
Muno systrungar 
*Sifiom spilla 
Hart er med Aauldrom 
JFferdomr mikill 
iSkeggold scalmold 
tfkildir klofnir, &c. 

Some principles of versification, equally obvious 
and simple with these before us, may be supposed 
to have existed in the national poetry of the ancient 
Celtse : for though these people were perfectly dis- 
tinct from the Gothic nations, they were nearly 
upon a level with them, as to the cultivation of the 
fine arts. We cannot suppose that they studied 
the harmony of thought, the elegant antithesis and 
repetition of the Hebrew poetry ; nor does it appear 
that their language was analyzed with due accuracy, 
and sufficiently polished, to admit of any thing like 
the harmonious feet of Greek and Roman verse. 

If we may judge of their verse, by the oldest spe- 
cimens which can be produced by their descendants, 
in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, they 
carried their art no farther than to adjust the number 
and cadence of syllables, in each line, to add the 
embellishment of strong and impressive alliteration, 
and to connect their verses with final rhymes, which 
were sometimes continued without variation, for 
several lines together. 



201 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

Of the old poetry of the Irish, I shall have occa- 
sion to produce some examples, in the course of 
this section. For that of the Britons, in Scotland 
and Cornwall, I refer to the works of the great 
antiquary, Edward Llwyd.* And, lest I should be 
accused of prepossession, in speaking of the Welsh 
Bards, I shall commit their cause entirely to Mr. 
Turner, who, in his learned and candid Vindication, 
has proved that the Welsh have considerable re- 
mains of the poetry of the sixth century, and that 
their verse is wholly constructed upon the principles 
here described. 

Rhyme has been employed as an ornament in the 
verse of almost every nation, in modern Europe. 
Some critics had, indeed, asserted, that it was 
utterly unknown in this part of the world, before the 
eighth or ninth century. But the gentleman to whose 
able defence I have now referred, has removed this 
objection, by shewing that rhyme was sufficiently 
known, long before the time of the oldest Welsh 
Bard, whose works have been preserved. 

I am searching, however, for the national verse 
of the ancient Celtae, and I think it must be detected 
in that of their oldest descendants. Whom should 
the Bards of the sixth century have imitated, but 
their predecessors in their own country, and who 

* See a specimen of the poetry of the Strath Cluid Britons, from a copy 
which Llwyd judged to be 1000 years old, now 1100, in the Archaeol. p. 221. 
For the Cornish, see Llwyd's 5 th Letter to Mr. Tonkin.— Archaol. Coma- 
B>'itan } append. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 202 

had composed in their own language ? What had 
they to do with the Saracens, or the monks of Italy ? 
Had not sufficient proofs been adduced, that rhyme 
was generally kown in Europe, as early as the first 
century of our aera, yet it might have been admitted 
as probable, that it was peculiarly known to the 
Celtse, amongst whose ancient poets we find it in 
full establishment. 

It cannot be objected, that it was of too complex 
and artificial a nature, to have occurred to this 
people, in their pagan state. For, of all the em- 
bellishments of verse, it is the most simple and 
obvious. Few men have produced hexameters 
and pentameters without design ; but spontaneous 
rhymes often occur in common conversation ; and 
when they occur, they strike the most uncultivated 
ear. The most illiterate are sensible of their im- 
pression, and can imitate them at pleasure. 

This embellishment of verse must have been 
peculiarly convenient for the use of the Druidical 
order. It is recorded of them, that they learned to 
recite a multitude of verses, treating of their national 
superstition ; and that the committing of such verses 
to writing, was prohibited by a positive law. They 
would, therefore, naturally avail themselves of every 
method they could device to assist the memory. To 
this end, nothing could have been more conducive, 
than the strong alliterations, and long-continued 
rhymes, which we find in the old Welsh Bards. 
The very sound of one word suggested the sue- 



203 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

ceeding ; and one line gave the echo of another. 
It must have been for the same purpose of assisting 
the memory, that these Bards frequently began 
several periods with the same phrase, and several 
successive lines with the same letter. 

And as the perfect rhyme, which returns precisely 
the same sound at stated intervals, makes the 
strongest [impression upon the ear; as it is most 
obvious to immediate remark, and, at the same 
time, the easiest model for imitation ; so it must, 
for these reasons, have been more ancient than that 
which depends upon artificial classifications of the 
letters. Thus a stranger to the language, immedi- 
ately sees the repetition of the same letters, and 
hears the return of the same sound, in the following 
lines of an old Welsh Bard : — 

Mor yw gwael gweled 
Cynnwro cynuired 
.Brathau a brithred 
JSrithwyr ar gerddedf. 

But in the subjoined example of complete Irish 
metre, the correspondence of letters is not so 
obvious : — 

" Naoi cced is tri fichid feibh, 
" Ag righadh deilis abett j 
" Soisir glic armtha f huinn, 
" Coisir Chalbhagh mhic Conuill/ 51 

Who can discover any correspondence between 
the terminations of these lines, till he has learned 
by his table, that ei, in the minor terminationjfef'6^, 
constitute an Ephthong, of the same class with the 
small vowel e, in the major termination abett ; and 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 204 

that nn, in fhuinn, and M, in Conuill, are equally of 
the class of robust consonants ? 

In poetry of this kind, the judgment of the ear is 
superseded by the rules of an artificial prosody. A 
minute knowledge of the Irish grammar is requisite, 
not only to compose, but even to read and under- 
stand it. If we had not positive evidence to decide 
the question, general history and common sense 
would have led us to the conclusion, that such was 
not the ancient verse of the Irish nation, or of any 
Celtic tribe whatsoever. The system, as I have 
already observed, appears to have originated in an 
age, when the genius of Ireland was turned from 
solid learning to the pursuit of curious trifles ; and 
not to have been completed before the fifteenth 
century. But to proceed — 

Alliteration, or the repetition of similar sounds, 
in the first and middle syllables of lines, does not 
present itself to the ear with the same force as final 
rhyme. It is less obvious ; and, therefore, I think 
its regular introduction, at stated intervals, is of 
more recent date than the other, amongst the Celtic 
Bards. But being of the same nature, or nothing 
more than a repetition of similar sounds, rhyme 
itself may have opened the way for the study of this 
embellishment, which was highly approved of by 
those Bards, as we may judge from the oldest re- 
mains of verse in Ireland and Wales. 

The modern Welsh Bards have, indeed, carried 
their fondness for this ornament to a vicious excess. 



205 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 



For the sake of this, they neglect regularity of plan, 
arrangement of thought, and perspicuity of diction. 
But their correspondent sounds are those which are 
fixed by nature, and which the ear of a stranger 
cannot help perceiving, though it may not approve 
of their frequency. 

The modern Irish Bards, as we have seen, are 
equally partial to correspondent sounds, of which 
they sometimes require six or seven, under different 
names, in a single couplet or half stanza, of their 
finished metres $ and though they have licence to 
dispense with some of them, yet the rule must 
have been established before the exception was 
authorized. But their correspondences are wholly 
artificial. They escape the cognizance of the un- 
tutored ear ;. and no Irish composer, or reader, can 
point out the graces of metre, unless he remem- 
ber his table, which tells him that these vowels 
and dipththongs are broad, and the others small; 
and that the consonants of one class are soft, — of 
another, hard, — of a third, rough, &c. Thus the 
difficulty of versification is augmented, whilst its 
effect is destroyed, and the pretensions to remote 
antiquity utterly overthrown. 

Upon the whole it appears, that the mechanical 
correspondence of articulate sounds, however differ- 
ently understood, is the great principle of Celtic 
verse in general, and that the obvious correspond- 
ence of sounds, naturally similar, was attended 



THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 206 

to, before the Bards thought of that which is more 
complex and artificial. 

We have already seen that the system of versifi- 
cation, which has been established in Ireland, for 
three or four centuries, as far as it regards the 
terminations of lines, in the same couplet, or of 
couplets in the same stanza* demands only a kind 
of artificial agreement. It dispenses altogether 
with natural rhyme. But of the specimens of Irish 
poetry which I have seen, I discover none in which 
the principles of this system act in their full force >, 
of an earlier date than Fitzgerald's poem upon a 
ship, written in the reign of Elizabeth.* Through- 
out this piece, legitimate rhymes, between the second 
and fourth line of the stanzas, are but thinly 
scattered, and seemingly by accident, as in the 
poems of the Caledonian Ossian, published by Mr. 
Smith. 

And though the adjustment of the system before 
us be of somewhat higher antiquity, it seems to have 
been employed, at first, rather as a licence for the 
occasional neglect of rhyme, than as a general rule 
to supersede it altogether. For in the poems of the 
fifteenth or sixteenth century, we perceive a greater 
number of true rhymes than what could have been 
produced by accident, and more than what the laws 
now in force demand. Thus in the poem upon 
Magnus the Great;\ the second and fourth line of 

* See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 300. t Ibid. p. 271, 

C C 



207 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the several stanzas, generally, rhyme audibly, and 
sometimes also, the first and third. The same is 
observable in The Chase*, a poem of considerable 
length, which mentions the expedition of Magnus ; 
which confounds his sera with that of St. Patrick, 
and is, therefore, a modern composition. See also 
the Romance of Moira JSor&f , which has a consi- 
derable number of alternate rhymes. 

From these instances it is evident, that natural 
and audible rhyme was not wholly neglected, two 
or three hundred years ago, and that the artificial 
system was then only getting into vogue. 

I have already quoted Miss Brooke's account of 
the poem of Conloch, th6 first in her collection — 
that it is impossible to avoid ascribing it to a very 
early period-— that the language is much older than 
any of that lady's originals, the War Odes excep- 
ted, and that it is quite different from the style of 
those poems, which are known to be the composition 
of the middle ages — that is, of the fifteenth and 
sixteenth century, according to Mr. Macpherson, 
and, I believe, according to truth. 

I have also observed, that Mr. O'Halloran, in his 
introduction to this piece, dates the subject about 
Anno Mundi, 3950. But 1 observe further, that 
the poet introduces the Norwegian name, Auliffe 
or Olave, amongst his Anno Mundi heroes ; he 
speaks familiarly of " Proud India's splended plain," 

* See Reliques of Irish Poetry, p, 278. t Ibid. p. 288. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 208 

of" Grecian shores," u Persian foes/' Pietish chiefs," 
" Lochlin, 5 ' " Spain/' &c. and records a dispute 
about paying the toll] of a bridge in Ulster. The 
piece is a high flown tale of chivalry, and taking it 
altogether, I cannot persuade myself that it is older 
than the thirteenth century, when that kind of 
romance began to be fashionable." Be that as it 
may, we here find several paragraphs in regular 
rhyme. The poem, for instance, opens thus: — • 

Tainig friath an bovb laoch, 
An cttraidh crodha Conlaoch ; 
An sna mmt 7ia garr£/ta grinn, 
O Dhunsgaf/iaig go Heirinn, 
Failte dhuit, a Zaoch luinii, 
A mhacaoimh aluinn airmghrinn ! 

In this passage, I have marked the alliterations, 
which are direct and obvious, like those of the old 
Gothic and Welsh verse, and do not depend upon 
artificial classifications of the letters, as in the more 
recent poems of the Irish and Scots. 

Miss Brooke regards the War Odes as the oldest 
of all her originals. Of these, she has favoured us 
with two examples. That upon Gaul seems to be 
by far the most modern of the two. It hangs upon 
an awkward romance, respecting a contest for pre- 
cedence, between Finn and Gaul, when the Bards, 
apprehensive of the consequence, shook the chain 



* The lamentation of Cuchullin, which concludes the poem, cannot be 
older than the fifteenth century. In some copies this appears as a separate 
piece ; in others, it is connected with the rest of the poem,— Assuitur 
pannas. 



209 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of silence, and flung themselves among the ranks, 
extolling the sweets of peace, and the achievements 
of the combatants' ancestors, &c. The Bard, 
addressing the two chiefs alternately, in long strings 
of heroic epithets, conjures Gaul to submit, and 
Finn to use moderation. At length, Gaul answers 
the Bard in verse, and the latter concludes with an 
appropriate compliment. 

This piece may possibly contain the substance of 
an old sonnet, not composed upon the spur of 
occasion, but written to commemorate a traditional 
reconciliation between the two heroes. The modern 
Bards, however, according to their custom, seem to 
have amplified it abundantly, and shaped it into a 
conciliatory song, adapted to the appeasing of 
broils, at the carousals of their chiefs. But as the 
measure of the old poems is preserved, we scarcely 
discover in it any thing of the present system of 
versification. There are several parts of the poem 
which will not divide at all into tetrastichs ; and 
those that will admit of such distribution, frequently 
drop into alternate rhymes, as in these examples :— 

Laoch feinnidhe fial 

Is gile glor 
Ni saobh acbiall 

Laoch aobhdha mor. 

A Fhinn an f huilt tais 

Ar Gholl na bris 
A mheirge ni tais 

Is mairg thagmhus ris. 

Eire fa chios 

Budh coir dha chuis 
Is meanmnach bhios 

Is dcalbhach aghnuis, &c. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 210 

I cannot produce parallels to these stanzas from 
the Welsh Bards, who seem not to have been 
acquainted with alternate rhymes. 

The war ode, commemorating the battle of Osgur, 
the son of Oisin, with Cairbre, king of Ulster, is 
undoubtedly the oldest of all Miss Brooke's ori- 
ginals. It is said to have been composed extempore, 
at the battle of Gabhra, in the year 296, so that the 
subject is intimately connected with the first book 
of Mr. Macpherson's Temora. 

But the Irish appear to entertain some very 
romantic ideas of their ancient Bards. These gen- 
tlemen did not, surely, rush into the very tumult of 
battle, accompanied with their band of performers, 
upon instruments of music — they did not actually 
place themselves close to the back of their patrons, 
catching inspiration from the scene before them, 
and pouring forth an ode, of eighty or a hundred 
regular lines, with a stentorian voice, which drowned 
the din of arms! If such was the case, the strain 
which described the falling stroke, and animated 
the rising arm, however accurate in its metre, must 
have been not only extemporaneous, but instan- 
taneous. And the musicians who could seize the 
flying words, and play in unison with these Carmina 
non prius — audita, must have been inspired with 
the very soul of the Bard. And this is not the 
whole of the difficulty which presents itself. How 
are we to account for the preservation of these 
subitaneous effusions ? Ought not a couple of secreT 



211 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

taries to be introduced, one at the elbow of the 
Bard, and the other at that of his chief harper, to 
take down the words and the music in short hand? 

It should seem more probable, that those odes 
which describe the circumstances of a battle were, 
invariably, composed after the tumult was over. 
And, as Osgur did not live to hear the encomium of 
the Bard, the composition of the present strain may 
have been delayed for an age or two, till an occasion 
offered itself of animating some other young hero, 
by a recital of the song of fame. 

But not to irritate the genius of Erin, it may be 
candidly admitted, that the ode before us, in the 
very structure of its verse, shews considerable marks 
of antiquity. For, instead of the tetrastichs of the 
modern Irish muse, it exhibits throughout the 
venerable remains of Celtic rhymes, which are often 
continued, without variation, for several lines toge- 
ther, as in the works of the old Welsh Bards. Thus 
we have four lines in ach, twenty-four in a and e ;* 
four in inn, four in ach, four in e,four in a, &c. 

The following is a specimen : — 

Na gabh osadh uatha 
Cosguir arightha 
A Osguir eirigh fubhtha 
Tarsa agus trioplitha 
Aghnuis is caoimhe crotha 
Eirigh adtus accalha 
Lean le feirg mo ghotha 
A meirg is dearg datha, &c 

* These two terminations are oddly mixed in the present copy ; but it & 
probable that, originally, all these lines ended in a. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 



212 



Was this intended for rhyme, or was it not ? I 
think the answer cannot be doubtful. As for the 
few irregularities and defective rhymes, which we 
now mid in the poem, they may well be supposed 
to have arisen from the interpolation or corruption 
of copies, or from the change of aspirated conso- 
nants, some of which I could point out, did I not 
find sufficient evidence already, to establish all that 
I want to prove — that rhyme was anciently used by 
the Irish Bards— and that the higher we ascend in 
the annals of Irish poetry, the less we find of the 
unrhymed stanzas of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
century, and the nearer we approach to the manner 
of the old Welsh Bards. 

I have observed that the subject of this ode falls 
in with the death of Oscar, in the first book of the 
Temora. I may add that, if I have been at all suc- 
cessful, in picking out the meaning of the original, 
several of the thoughts are more happily rendered 
in that poem than in the translation of the Irish 
lady. 

Mr. Smith speaks of the death of Oscar, which 
his predecessor had incorporated into his epic poem, 
as a separate piece, and one of the best known in 
the Highlands.* In another part of his volumef 
he gives two extracts from this piece, by which it 
appears that, whilst the Irish poem, upon the combat 
of Oscar and Cairbar, is composed in an antiquated 



Galic Antiq. p. 97. 



t Ibid. p. 300. 



213 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

and forgotten kind of verse, that of the Highlanders 
exhibits the unrhymed stanzas, which were used by 
the Irish poets, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth 
century ; as for example— 

Donnalaicli nan con remthaobh, 
Agus buirich nan seanlaoch 
Gul a phannail so co snitheacb, 
Sud is mo chraidh mo chroidhe.* 

Hence it appears, that the Scots had a poem upon 
the battle of Oscar and Cairbar, before they could 
boast of the Temora, an epic poem in eight books, 
and that the Irish had a poem upon the same sub- 
ject, long before either of the others could have 
been composed. 

I shall carry my inquiry after the ancient versifi- 
cation of the Irish but one degree farther. In 
the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, for 
the year 1788, Mr, O'Halloran has introduced an 
encomiastic poem, addressed to Goll, the son of 
Morna, or Gaul, the son of Mirni. This ode, 
according to the editor, was sung at the battle of 
Cuacha, fought A. D. 155. Whatever I may think 
of the date which is here assigned to the poem, or 
of the occasion upon which it was composed, it 
would be trifling to dispute with Mr. O'Halloran 
about the small interval of six or seven centuries. 
Let it suffice, that the piece is brought forward, as 
one of the very oldest reliques of the poetry of Erin. 



* " The gvoans of aged chiefs ; the howling of my dogs ; the sudden 
u bursts of the song of grief, have melted Oscar's soul."— Macpherson, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 214 

And, if it be admitted that such a hero as Gaul ever 
did exist, this rhapsody, allowing for a few modern- 
izations, and perhaps, a few interpolated lines, bids 
the fairest of any thing which I have seen, to be the 
genuine productions of his age. For here we dis- 
cover the unsophisticated barbaric muse, without 
a shred of borrowed ornament, simple, even to 
rusticity, without plan, without invention, without 
even connection of ideas. The piece, consisting of 
eighty-eight short verses,* has neither beginning, 
middle, nor end. It is a mere hampered string of 
epithets, and has hardly a single verb to hang them 
together. 

But as to the structure of its verse, its measure, 
its strong alliterations, and its final rhymes, they 
are, in general, precisely the same as those of the 
early Welsh Bards, Let the reader compare them, — 

Irish. 

Goll mear wrileata 
Ceap na crodhachta 
Laimh f hial arrachta 
Mian na mordhasa. 

Welsh of Aneurin. 

Gredyfgwr oed g-was 
Gwrhyt am dias 
Meirch mwth myngoras 
Y dan mordhwyt mygrwas.f 

Welsh of Taliesin. 

Mydwyv wierwerydd 
Jfolawd Duw Dovydd 
Llwrw cyvranc cywydd 
Cyvreu dyvnwedydd4 

* In this edition, two verses are crowded into one line, 

t W, Archaiol, p. 1. % Ibid. p. 37. 

D D 



215 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

The structure of ancient British and Irish verse, 
being thus one and the same, I cannot persuade 
myself that the Bards of either country deserted 
their own established mode, to imitate that of the 
other : on the contrary, I infer, that they had equally 
retained the same mode, from some remote age, in 
which their ancestors had been better connected ; 
and consequently, that this was the style of versifi- 
cation amongst the ancient Celtic tribes, under the 
direction of the Druids. 

What I deem another remarkable circumstance 
iy this — Almost every line in the Irish poem, ex- 
cepting a few which depart from the general laws of 
the verse, and are, therefore, either modernized or 
interpolated, may, by a mere change of orthography, 
be converted into pure Welsh, preserving the sense 9 
the measure, the alliteration, and the rhyme, and 
exhibiting a phraseology very similar to that of 
Taliesin. Though not a Bard myself, I will take 
the liberty, in my appendix,* of recommending a 
few specimens to the attention of those Irish and 
Galic critics, who affirm, that our language is nothing 
more than a depraved dialect of the Celtic. To me, 
it appears an evident fact, that, in the age of our 
unknown Bard, the Irish language had much greater 
analogy with this depraved dialect, than it has at 
present. 



* No. l. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 9A0 

This piece also exhibits some specimens of alter- 
nate rhyme, still preserving the alliteration, as in 
the following example : — 

IViath na from clianna 
JSriathra 6inn mhala 
Mile wear dhanna 
Dlightheach diongmhala, &c. 

It must not, however, be dissembled that, in the 
copy before me, I find twenty out of eighty-eight 
lines, which do not rhyme at all. Yet, T cannot 
entertain the smallest doubt, that this piece was, 
originally, composed throughout, in the same kind 
of full-sounding rhymes and alliteration, which were 
employed by the ancient Welsh Bards, and are con- 
stantly used by their successors to this day. For 
the occasional want of these ornaments in the poem, 
as it now stands, many reasons may be assigned. 
By a careless reciter or copyist, the lines may have 
been transposed, and separated from their corres- 
pondents : for the piece is of so loose a texture, that 
the disjointed verses may be all shaken in a bag, 
and placed, as they are drawn out at random, with- 
out injury to the construction or the plan. This 
defect in the composition may also have furnished 
the modern Bards with an easy opportunity to throw 
in a few additional epithets, to grace the character 
of the hero ; and as rhyme was not used in their 
age, it would, of course, be neglected in such inter- 
polations. We learn from Miss Brooke, who was 
in the secret of the Irish antiquaries, that some 
recent copies of old poems exhibit several lines, 



217 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

which are not to be found in others, of an earlier 
date. And we are informed, by the same lady, that, 
when a word in the ancient poems was become very 
obsolete, it was customary to change it for one 
better understood. Such changes would also be 
made without any regard to the preservation of 
rhyme, which was now got out of fashion. 

Mr. O'Halloran contemplates this ode to Goll, in 
an important light, as proving, ad ins tantiam cruris, 
the early state of arts, letters, and civilization, in 
Ireland. This gentleman will not think, therefore, 
that I pay an ill compliment to his country, by 
transcribing his translation at full length. And I 
wish to contrast its style with that of Macpherson's 
Ossian. 

6 ' Goll, vigorous and warlike. Chief of heroes ! 
Generous and puissant hand. Meditator of glorious 
deeds. Bulwark dreadful as fire. Terrible is thy 
wrath! Champion of many battles. Royal hero. 
Like a lion, rapid to the attack. Ruin to the foe. 
Overwhelming billow. Goll frequent in action. 
Invincible in the most dreadful conflicts. Great in 
the conflicts. Warrior of increasing glory. Hero 
of mighty deeds. Lion, furious in action. Ani- 
mating, harmonious Bard. Destroyer of councils. 
Puissant, all- victorious. Subduer of fierce legions. 
Ruin to the renowned. In anger impetuous. Ad- 
mired by mighty monarchs. Chief of heavy tributes. 
Of all- persuasive eloquence. Bold and intrepid 
warrior. Unbiassed legislator. Goll of martial 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 218 

pride. Strong in body. Great in arms. Courteous 
and polite to the legions. Fierce and powerful in 
action. Shield of great lustre. Flower of unfading 
beauty. Rapid as the mountain flood is the force 
of your strong arm. A sea over rivulets. Sullen 
in the duel. Great in the uproar of battle. Tower 
of strong defence. Billow over swelling seas. Goll, 
terrible in the shouts. Lover of constant desolation. 
Son of the great Morna. Patron of Bards. Respite 
to champions. A tribute to septs. Ruin of invaders. 
Prince of sure protection. Subduer of every 
country. Conspicuous in royal laws. Imposer of 
heavy tributes. Presiding in every great assembly. 
Unboundedly generous. Penetrating in council. 
Gallant issue of the great Darius. Watchful of 
every great charge. Of unsullied reputation. Head 
of the long- reigning sept. Valiant and invincible. 
Sea of resounding billows. Lord of high cultivations. 
Companion of gallant feats. Mighty are the strokes 
of the illustrious Goll. Vigilant commander of the 
legions. Deviser of exalted deeds. Fierce, all- 
victorious. In words, graceful and nervous. Goll, 
of fierce and mighty blows. Hero of rigid partition. 
Despoiler of the Ernains. Sword of rapid and 
severe execution. Hero of many contributions. 
Constant benefactor to Munster. A swift flowing 
stream. Fair as the snowy foam. Protector of 
Connaught. Of unbounded enterprize. Generous 
hero of the long flowing hair. Shield to the retreat- 
ing. Commander of mighty legions. Unrivalled 



219 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

in prowess. Solid and extensive support. Great 
in the rout of battle. Great is the majesty of my 
Goll. His glory is unsullied. My Goll is a bulwark. 
The spirit of close conflict." 

Such is this celebrated rhapsody. Its obsolete 
language and antiquated verse bear testimony to its 
high antiquity. And why may it not, with the ex- 
ception of a few sentences, be as old as the days 
of Gaul and his contemporary, Fingal? If it be 
admitted that Ireland could ever boast of such 
heroes, we cannot entertain a reasonable doubt, but 
that their age was also graced with Irish poets, such 
as they were. Nor can we account better for the 
romantic fame which those worthies acquired, in 
recent times, than by supposing that some frag- 
ments of their encomiastic Bards descended to 
posterity. This piece, surely, is not too methodical, 
or too classical, to be deemed one of the number. 

The Irish had a written language in an earlier age 
than that which I assign to Gaul and Fingal. They 
have various remains of their national literature, 
preserved in manuscripts, some of which are pretty 
old : and they constantly affirm, that amongst these 
a few specimens of their ancient poetry are to be 
found. I know not where to ground a reasonable 
objection to this testimony. 

The ode upon Osgur's combat, and this panegy- 
ric upon Gaul, are brought forwards as some of 
the very oldest remains of this kind. Their style 
of composition is not calculated to excite envy, nor 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSI'AN. 220 

to encourage scepticism. They appear extremely 
rude and uncouth, far below the worst episode of 
Mr. Macpherson's Ossian, and by no means superior 
to the rustic effusions of the old Cambrian Muse, 
which they exactly resemble in the idiom of lan- 
guage and the structure of the verse. 

The Irish pretend not to boast of any other kind 
of poetry of equal age, as exhibiting a superior style 
of composition. These pieces may, therefore, be 
regarded as fare documents of the ancient state of 
poetry in Ireland : for, had the art been brought to 
a higher degree of perfection, in an early age, we 
should have seen some better specimens of it. No 
satisfactory reason can be assigned, why all the good 
pieces should have perished, whilst several copies of 
indifferent compositions havebeen preserved. Those 
which were committed to writing, and carefully 
transcribed from age to age, must have been the 
most esteemed by the Bards and the people* They 
must have been those which approached nearest to 
their ideas of perfection — the best they had to 
produce. 

This panegyric may, therefore, be regarded, not 
only as a fair, but a favourable specimen of the 
poetry of Ireland, in the days of Gaul, and of his 
contemporary Fingal. And, after we have struck 
out a few epithets, which do not appear consistent 
with the character and situation of the hero, it is 
precisely such as we might have expected, from the 



221 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

state of society in that country, whether in the third 
or in the ninth century. 

I am aware of an objection — It is said that the 
Ode addressed to Osgur, and this, to Gaul, were 
extemporaneous effusions, in the heat of battle. 
But this objection is overruled by the art and regu- 
larity of the verse, the only art which we perceive 
throughout the poems. The Ode on Osgur was 
evidently composed after the battle, and this com- 
pliment to Gaul carries no internal evidence, that it 
was composed either in a battle, or even in time 
of war. It appears, on the contrary, to be a cool 
panegyric, in which the artless Bard endeavours to 
recommend himself to the hero's notice, by loading 
him with every good quality, either for the cabinet 
or the field, which his rude fancy could suggest. 
But, even were we to grant to the antiquaries of 
Erin, that the Bard poured out his rhapsody in the 
heat of battle ; in order to account for the preser- 
vation of his work, it is necessary to suppose also, 
that he afterwards recollected his thoughts at an hour 
of leisure, and committed them to writing, or else, 
recited them to some persons, who could duly attend 
to the song of fame, and treasure it in their memory. 
Is it likely, that during this favourable interval, the 
poet did not correct the errors of hasty effusion, and 
make as good a thing as he could of his poem, both 
to do credit to himself and to his patron? This 
cannot be supposed. 



THE CLAIMS OF OS8IAN. 222 

But if such was the genuine poetry of the Irish 
Bards, in the age of these heroes, it is evident that 
the genuine works of Ossian, had they reached our 
times, must have presented us with something of 
the same kind. For whether that Bard be classed 
amongst the luminaries of Erin or of Caledonia, he 
must have found the state of society, and of the arts, 
nearly the same, in either situation. The two coun- 
tries were inhabited by tribes of the same people, 
who spoke the same language, and had their arts, 
manners, and customs, in common. 

The poems published by Mr. Macpherson, and 
his own notes upon them, represent the state of 
poetry, in the days of Ossian, as being exactly upon 
a level in both countries. Hence he makes his 
author introduce long and eventful episodes of the 
Irish Bards, into his Caledonian poems.* These 
episodes, so totally different in the style of their 
composition, from the genuine poetry of the ancient 
Irish, are undoubtedly spurious : and the poems 
which contain them are as evidently the productions 
of a more cultivated age. 

When we have the good fortune to discover any 
genuine remains of old Caledonian poetry, we must 
not expect to be reminded of the model of Homer 
and the rules of Aristotle ; nor even to contemplate 



* See the Song of Althan, which occupies seven pages, in the first book 
of Temora — the Song of Cathmor's Bard, in the second book, &c. 

If the works of Ossian are authentic, these passages contain genuine 
Irish songs. 

E E 



223 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the artificial stanzas of the late Irish Bards, but the 
verse which these rude poems exhibit, and which, 
like that of our ancestors, is adorned with full- 
sounding and long-continued rhyme. How absurdly, 
then, does the daughter of the modern Irish muse 
reproach the Cambro-Britons with the use of rhyme, 
which was the favourite decoration of her own great 
grandmother ! Had the wardrobe of this assuming 
lady contained any ancient family habits, we should, 
undoubtedly, have distinguished the true Celtic 
fringe. And, even now, we may perceive a few old 
fashioned shreds hanging about her, of which the 
stately dame herself seems to be totally unconscious. 

I shall not insist upon the old oracular verse 
respecting the fatal stone, which is quoted by Toland 
and Borlase. Its rhymes are very good, but they 
may, possibly, be of Irish manufacture. Nor shall 
I lay much stress upon those stanzas of Ossian, in 
Mr. Smith's specimens, which have natural rhymes 
between the second and fourth line. For, as the 
Highland Bards copied the Irish metres of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth century, they may be sup- 
posed to have blundered upon all their peculiarities. 
But the author of the Galic Antiquities exposes to 
our view something more to the purpose. 

Twenty lines of Ossicles poem, entitled Dargo, 
are introduced as specimens, with this preface, — 
" Such has been the fate of the Galic poetry, that 
61 its most beautiful passages are, generally, those 
" which have been most objected to, To suppress 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 224 

" any of them, on this account, would be as cow- 
iC ardly, as it would be presumptuous, to treat the 
a prejudices against them with indifference. Every 
" body has as much right, in this case, to judge for 
" himself, as the translator has, who does all he can 
ct to put this in their power, by laying before them 
" the words of the original." Twelve of these lines, 
which exemplify the very best manner of Ossian, 
are as follows :— 

Tha codhail nan cathan ann sith 

*S iad air sgiathan na doininn gun strith, 

Gun bheum-sgeithe gun f haruui lainne 

'N co'nuidh thosdach na caomh-chlainne. 

Tha sliochd Lochlinn is Fhinn gu h ard, 

Ag eisdeachd caithream nan aona bhard. 

An uigh cho'n eil tuille ri stri' 

? S gun uireas' air siothan no fri\ 

Mar sgeul nam blianai' chaidh seach 

Air iteig aonaich le'n ciar-dhreach, 

Tha aisling na beatha dhuibh's a Fhlaithibh : 

Mar tha dhamhsa Dearg nan cathaibh.* 

Here we have twelve lines of Ossian, taken from 
one favourite passage, which rhyme not, indeed, 
precisely in the manner of the old Welsh and Irish 
poems, but exactly like the couplets of Dryden and 
Pope. If these are genuine, the Bard of Selma was 
no stranger to the use of rhyme ; if they are not 
genuine, Scotland has produced some unknown 
Bard in recent times, who could successfully per- 
sonate his character. However this may be, as it 
appears that rhyme was a general ornament of 

* Galie Antiq. p. 290. 



225 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

ancient Celtic poetry, such passages as these ex- 
hibit the best title to antiquity that Ossian has to 
produce. If ever he deigns to descend from the 
shades of the fourth century to pay us a visit, without 
this credential, he will be deservedly regarded with 
suspicion and distrust. But as the absence of rhyme 
is thought to contribute to the credit of the royal 
Bard, there can be little doubt but that the care of 
editors will knock off most of his remaining shackles, 
before they introduce his larger poems to the public. 
And how easily may the rhyme and the measure be 
disguised in any language ! 

The lamb which thy riot dooms to bleed this morning, 
Had he but thy knowledge, would he skip and play ! 
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry pasture, 
And licks the hand that is just rais'd to shed his blood. 

In the printed specimens of the poems ascribed 
to Ossian, it were easy to point out perversions, 
somewhat like the above, whether accidental or 
designed, I know not. The author of the Galic 
Antiquities introduces a favourite passage, with the 
following remark : — " The Galic reader will wish to 
f see these lines in their native terror." 

Le sgreadail an lanna garbha 

*S le caoiribh teine o'n cruaidh arma ; 

Chulr iad iasg nan cuantaidh stuadhach, 

Ann an caoilte caola fuara. 

Chuir iad feidh nam beanntaidh arda 

Gus na gleanntaidh fuara fasail; 

? S eunlaith bhinn-f hoclach nan coillteach, 

Anns na speuran le crith-oillte.* 

* Galic- Antiq. p. 302. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 226 

In these verses we have evident remains of such 
alliterations and rhyme as were employed by the 
ancient Bards of Ireland and Wales ; but the rhyme 
is broken, and the construction injured by the 
change of a few letters. For stuadhach, ridgy, in 
the third line, let us read stuadha, ridges : restore 
the adjective to its natural situation in the sixth line, 
by reading fasailfuara: for coillteach, wooddy, in 
the seventh line, read coillte, woods; the rhyme 
will be perfectly restored, and the sense will be 
rendered perspicuous. — 

At the crash of rigid swords, 

And fiery sparks from steel armour, 

The fish of the bays, between the hills, retire 

To the narrow, cool straits : 

The deer of the lofty mountains retire 

To the desart, and cold vallies ; 

And the sweet-singing birds of the woods, 

Towards the sky, with trembling tenor. 

Whatever the Scots have borrowed from the 
poetry and tales of the Irish, they have generally 
improved. This people must, therefore, possess 
genius, and taste for poetry ; and there can be no 
doubt, but that they had poets of their own for many 
ages. When they bring forward passages which 
bear the genuine stamp of 0I4 Celtic verse, and 
Celtic composition, it will readily be admitted, that 
they have preserved some fragments of their na- 
tional Bards for four or five centuries, which is, 
perhaps, as long as poetry can exist by oral tradition. 
But when the modern critics reject every appearance 



227 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of rhyme, they deprive the Galic songs of all preten- 
sions to credit for remote antiquity. 

As to the authenticity and genuineness of Ossian's 
poems, I have now delivered my opinion candidly 
and freely. I am far from wishing to bias the 
judgment of others. Let my Essay be regarded 
as anonymous, but let my reasons be weighed. I 
have only stated what occurred to my own mind, 
as objections to the high degree of historical im- 
portance which some writers have attached to these 
poems. If these objections can be fairly set aside, 
so far from being an obstinate adversary, I shall 
rejoice in having occasioned a full vindication of the 
most elegant effusions of the Celtic muse. 

It was my intention to have added a section, upon 
the subject of the Caledonian language, with a view 
to discuss its title to the emphatical name of The 
Celtic ; but as such inquiries excite little interest, 
I shall conclude with a few short observations. 

Prior to the publication of the translated Ossian, 
the Erse or Galic of Scotland was regarded, both 
at home and abroad, merely as the patois of the 
Irish. But since it has pretended to the preserva- 
tion of heroic poems of the third and fourth century, 
in the living voice of the people, it has aspired to a 
higher rank: it now affects to be styled emphati- 
cally, The Celtic, whilst the Irish, Welsh, &c. are 
degraded and considered as depraved dialects. It 
may be worth inquiry, how this degree of pre^ 



THE CLAIMS OF 09SIAN. 228 

eminence is to be supported, by the language of 
Caledonia, if the voice of Ossian should faiL 

Mr. Macpherson tells us — " The first circum- 
*' stance that induced me to disregard the vulgarly 
" received opinion, of the Hibernian extraction of 
u the Scottish nation, was my observations on their 
" ancient language. That dialect of the Celtic 
" tongue, spoken in the north of Scotland, is much 
" more pure, more agreeable to its mother language, 
" and more abounding with primitives, than that 
" now spoken, or even that which has been written, 
" for some centuries back, amongst the most un- 
" mixed part of the Irish nation." 

Were all this admitted, it does not follow, that 
Scotland must needs be the mother country. In 
the last six hundred years, the Irish may have been 
more mixed with strangers than the northern Cale- 
donians have been. The Icelanders are said to 
have preserved their ancient tongue better than the 
inhabitants of the mother country ; yet this has not 
been adduced as an argument for deriving the 
Norwegians from Iceland. 

But the purity of the Galic does not appear from 
the printed specimens of Ossian, which abound with 
words analogous to terms of the Latin language, 
and of the Gothic dialects. Of its advantage over 
the Irish, in the abundance of primitives, a stranger 
cannot well judge, as the terms of both dialects are 
huddled together, without distinction, in their com- 
mon dictionary. But Mr. Shaw's account of his 



229 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

labours, in collecting vocables, does not seem to 
favour the above assertion. 

And how does Mr. Macpherson compare his Galic 
with the mother tongue ? It is not easy to procure 
an authentic and connected specimen of the ancient 
Celtic of Gaul, unless it be found in the Armorican ; 
and, in that case, the Welsh and Cornish would step 
in long before the Galic or Irish. By the mother 
tongue, the author, perhaps, means only the language 
of Ossian — then his assertion amounts to nothing 
more than this, that the Galic is more similar to 
itself than to a foreign dialect. But to proceed — 

" A Scotchman, tolerably conversant in his own 
" language, understands an Irish composition, from 
" that derivative analogy which it has to the Galic 
" of North Britain. An Irishman, on the other hand, 
" without the aid of study, can never understand a 
tc composition in the Galic tongue." 

If the Scotchman here described, can read any 
Galic at all, he must necessarily understand Irish : 
for Mr. Shaw, in the introduction to his grammar, 
informs us, that he could find no books but Irish, 
and a few late tracts, which were written in imitation 
of that dialect: and in the introduction to his dic- 
tionary, he asserts further, that the Irish has always 
been the written and studied language. A Scotch- 
man may, therefore, be supposed to understand the 
language which he reads, or is in the habit of hearing 
others read, and which is studied in his country, 
much better than an Irishman can comprehend the 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 230 

neglected idiom of the Scottish populace. A 
provincial labourer in England, understands the 
question of a stranger who addresses him in plain 
English; but the latter often finds it difficult to 
make out the meaning of the peasant's answer. 
Let us hear the author out — 

" The Irish, however backward they may be to 
" allow any thing to the prejudice of their antiquity, 
" seem, inadvertently, to acknowledge it, in the 
" very appellation they give to the dialect they 
" speak. — They call their own language Caelic 
u Eirinach, i. e. Caledonian Irish, when, on the 
Ci contrary, they call the dialect of North Britain, 
" a Chaelic, or, the Caledonian tongue, emphati- 
" cally."* 

If I may trust the dictionaries of the language, 
this designation is not perfectly accurate. Mr. Shaw 
interprets Gaoidhal, " an Irishman, a Highlander 
of Scotland ;" and Gaoidhleag, cc the Irish, Gaelic, 
or old Celtic tongue." If priority, in the order of 
declaration, implies emphasis, it is here introduced 
in favour of the Irish. The Welsh apply the terms 
Gwydel, and Gwyddelaeg, to the Irishman and his 
language exclusively. 

Mr. Shaw, in the introduction to his dictionary, 
speaks of the Galic, as the greatest monument of 
antiquity now in the world: as the language of 
Japhet, spoken before the deluge, and, probably, 

* Diss, on the Poems of Ossian. 
F F 



231 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the speech of paradise! These are high preten- 
sions. But how does the author prove the originality 
of the Highland dialect, and its preeminence over 
the Irish? 

He tells us that it wants that variety of inflections 
and terminations, which we find in the latter.—- This 
argument will not hold good in parallel instances. 
The country of the Greeks was overrun by Bar- 
barians. The people, in consequence, became 
rude : their noble language lost its inflections ; and 
they now form the tenses of their verbs by the aid 
of auxiliaries. The same thing happened to Rome 
and her provinces : the various terminations of the 
Latin nouns have, consequently vanished, in the 
modern Italian, French, and Spanish. Our Saxon 
ancestors used a variety of inflections and termina- 
tions; but, for some centuries after the Norman 
conquest, their language was abandoned to the 
populace ; when it began to re-emerge into fashion, 
about the time of Edward the Third, it appeared 
to have been stripped of most of its terminations. 
The patois of our present English has still fewer 
terminations than the standard language. In the 
rustic idiom we hear the verbs gets, has, does, &c. 
carried through all the persons of both numbers, 
without variation. What is the inference from these 
examples ? 

Are the present dialects of the Greek and Roman 
languages more original and pure than those of the 
classical writers ? Is the modem English older than 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 232 

the Anglo-Saxon, or the jargon of the peasant than 
the written English ? If not, why should we think 
the Erse more original and pure than the Irish, when 
we discover that it wants several formative inflec- 
tions, which the other has retained ? Shall we not 
rather say that men, during a retrograde lapse in 
the scale of society, find themselves possessed of a 
language too precise for their use, and naturally 
drop into a simple and slovenly mode of expi assing 
their contracted ideas. 

And such is the state in which Mr. Shaw repre- 
sents the Caledonians. Their country was once 
the seat of government, and their language, that of 
the court. The government has been removed ; and 
the language, long since neglected, even by the 
natives. Let us hear this gentleman's detail of 
simple facts, relative to the state in which he found 
the language when he published his grammar, in 
1778. — " In this situation I found the Galic — with 
" few books, and fewer manuscripts, in the living 
" voice of many thousands, who entirely neglected 
" it, v * Not one manuscript is named or described ; 
and the only books were, the Irish translation of 
the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and the Psalms 
in Metre, both imitations of the Irish dialect. To 
these are added two or three collections of songs, 
and Baxter's Call — all of which are wretchedly 
orthographied. 

* Introd. to the Gram, p. 8. 



233 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Ci At present, 1 much doubt (continues the author), 
" whether there be four men in Scotland, that would 
" spell one page the same way ; for it has hitherto 
ct been left to the caprice and judgment of every 
" speaker, without the steadiness of analogy, or 
cc direction of rules. The taste at this day, of the 
" clergy, a learned and respectable order, is to 
<c understand the English, content with what Galic 
" enables them to translate a sermon, they originally 
u wrote in English. And though they are obliged 
"to speak in public once in seven days, there are 
" not five ministers in Scotland, who write their 
c ? discourse? in their own tongue ; yet there are 
" several ambitious to be reputed the translators of 
" a few lines of Galic poetry.* Conceiving an early 
" taste for Galic — I thought, for my own private 
Ci amusement, of subjecting it to certain rules, to 
" be observed when I had occasion to speak it, an 
" undertaking which, without any precedent, I 
u thought at first impracticable. — Considering a 
" Galic Grammar as an addition to the stores of 
" literature—I was encouraged to persevere in at- 
i( tempting to do what was never done before "\— 

" To reduce to rule a language without books, 
<c and having no standard but the judgment of 
" every speaker, is an undertaking, perhaps, ad- 
" venturous." &c. 

This, surely, is the picture of a corrupt and 
expiring jargon of the populace, rather than of a 

* Introd. to the Gram. p. 11. f Ibid. p. 13. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 234 

pure and original language. Mr. Shaw, however, 
did persevere. He attempted to frame and esta- 
blish a Galic orthography, founded on the general 
philosophy of language. — This proved, at last, to 
be a close imitation of the Irish, excepting that some 
aspirated consonants, which custom had rendered 
quiescent, were discarded, and those only retained 
which were necessary to preserve the etymology, 
and express the sounds of words. Having completed 
this process, the grammarian, rather prematurely, 
introduces a compliment on his native language, as 
possessing a more commodious system of ortho- 
graphy than the Irish. — " Unlike the Irish, the Scots 
" Galic delights to pronounce every letter, and is 
u not bristled over with so many useless and qui- 
" escent consonants. " 

Soon after the publication of his grammar, this 
gentleman felt an impulse to attempt snatching 
from oblivion the Galic tongue, which was now in 
her last struggles for existence. — He began to 
collect materials for his dictionary. 

In the Highlands, there being few books, and 
still fewer manuscripts, in the Scotch dialect, the 
language in the living voice was the only source, 
from which he could gather vocables. Having ex- 
torted from a niggardly populace, who would not 
open their mouths without being first paid, a few 
oral mites of the language of Japhet, of the ante- 
diluvians, and of paradise, which were only current 
from hill to hill, amongst the defiles of Caledonia, he 
went over into Ireland. Here he found a language 



235 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

rich in manuscripts, and cultivated by men of learn 
ing — here he finished his collection ; and here he is 
compelled to abandon his philosophical system of 
Galic orthography. 

"The Galic reader will find no innovations in 
" orthography ; for I have considered it my business, 
" rather to record words, as they have been written 
** in the ancient Irish manuscripts, than attempt to 
" write a dictionary, by altering the spelling from 
u the received method, to what I might conceive it 
" ought to be, according to the powers of the letters 
" and the philosophy of language. — The Irish dia- 
ic led has always been the written and the studied 
" language."* 

Such a view of the expiring dialect of Caledonia, 
taken by its national lexicographer, and its first, if 
not only grammarian, must, undoubtedly, derogate 
from its lately assumed pretensions. The circum- 
stances and facts here recited, would have deserved 
Mr. Smith's attention, when he was compiling a 
History of the Druids, founded upon Galic etymo- 
logies, not to mention the numberless dissertations, 
sketches, and criticisms, which, since the appearance 
of Mr, Macpherson's Ossian, have swarmed and 
buzaed in the atmosphere of letters. Unsupported 
by the genuine works of the Bard of Selma, the 
Galic must, in my humble opinion, return to the 
station which it occupied fifty years ago, and be 
content to rank as a patois of the Irish language. 

* Introd. to Shaw's Diet, 



Section V. 



SECTION V. 

FIRST ADDITIONAL. 

On the general evidence disclosed in those volumes which contain the 
original Galic. 



The originals taken only from copies in Macpherson's hand writing — 
this circumstance not calculated to remove suspicion.— Search Sir John 
Sinclair's Dissertation for better arguments — the authorities quoted from 
Buchanan, Johnston, &c. wholly irrelevant. — Testimonies of authors, upon 
Scotch tradition, prove that the character of Fingal, as drawn in these 
poems, was unknown before the middle of the seventeenth century— the 
argument drawn from the names of places, &c. inconclusive— the account 
given of MSS. too general and indistinct to decide any thing — testimony 
of the Danish historian perfectly nugatory— the laws of the metre, which 
are supposed to have assisted the memory — proved to be founded in the 
modern prosody and orthography of the Irish— the poems, therefore, of 
recent composition. 



Having stated, in the preceding pages, some 
circumstances, in Macpherson's translation, and its 
attendant dissertations and notes, that appear un- 
favourable to Ossian's claim of high antiquity, and 
historical credit, I now proceed briefly to consider 
the evidence of the recent publication which an- 
nounces the Galic originals. 

This long promised work has, at length, come 
forth, in three volumes, royal octavo, bearing the 
following title: — "The poems of Ossian, in the 
" original Gaelic, with a literal translation into 
" Latin, by the late Robert Macfarlan, A. M. toge- 
" ther with a Dissertation on the authenticity of the 
Ci poems, by Sir John Sinclair, Bart. ; and a trans- 
" lation from the Italian of the Abbe Cesarotti's 
" Dissertation, on the controversy respecting the 
<c authenticity of Ossian, with notes, and a supple- 
iC mental Essay, by John Mc. Arthur, JLL. D. 
" Published under the sanction of the Highland 
u society in London." 1807. 

These respectable names, by which the Galic 
Hard is introduced to the public, may be viewed 
as a certain pledge, that in the work before us, his 
cause has obtained all the solid support it is capable 
of receiving. And this support is deemed ampiv 

G G 



239 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

sufficient to withstand all the objections that have 
been made, or can be made, against the credit of 
these poems : for Sir John Sinclair concludes his 
dissertation, by declaring his trust, that he has 
established two important propositions, which he 
hopes can no longer be questioned: namely, u 1. 
ct That the poems of Ossian are authentic, ancient 
" poetry ; and 2. That, in a remote period of our 
" history, the mountains of Scotland produced a 
" Bard, whose works must render his name immortal, 
" and whose genius has not been surpassed, by the 
" efforts of any modern, or even ancient competitor." 
(Signed) " John Sinclair," 

It will therefore be proper for me, with candour 
and attention, to weigh the chief arguments in this 
dissertation, that I may discover how far it may be 
expedient to alter or retract the opinion I have 
already formed, or in what particulars I may still 
persist in maintaining it. But, previous to this, I 
must state a few general facts, which may give the 
reader an easy introduction into the subjects before 
him. 

The editors of the present work direct their chief 
efforts to prove, that the Galic poems did not origi- 
nate with Mr. Macpherson — that poems composed 
in that language, and ascribed to Ossian, were 
known in Scotland, before his time ; and that he 
collected such poems from MSS. and oral tradition. 
All this is admissible; but having established these 
points, our editors assume as a necessary consequence, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 240 

that the poems published by Mr. Macpherson are 
ancient and authentic. Such arguments, and the 
facts upon which they rest, may be effectually di- 
rected against those critics who maintain that the 
tales relative to the affairs of the Fingalians, were 
the pure invention of Mr. Macpherson ; but I cannot 
perceive their force, in ascertaining the genuineness 
and antiquity of the poems in question. They may 
be Galic poems of some standing, and yet not the 
work of Ossian, or of a remote age. 

Be that as it may, this publication will not go far, 
in proving the identity of the present collection, as 
to its verse and phraseology, with the genuine recitals 
of the aged Highlanders : or, if that identity, in 
general, be supposed, it will not enable us to judge 
of the alterations which the poems may have under- 
gone in the translator's hands : for the Galic text is 
wholly derived, with some orthographical corrections, 
from papers which Mr. Macpherson had left behind 
him, at his death, in his own hand writing ; and the 
originals of eleven of the poems are wanting,* 
because no Galic copies of them were found amongst 
his papers. We are, indeed, told, in an adver- 
tisement prefixed to the first volume, that such 
deficiencies might have been supplied from other 
manuscripts, or oral tradition ; but that the com- 
mittee appointed to superintend the printing of this 



* Namely— Oithona— The War of Caros— Cathlin of Clutha— Sulmala 
of Lumon— The War of Inisthona — The Songs of Selma— Lathmon — Dar- 
thula— The Death of Cuthullin— The Battle of Lora, and Berrathon. 



241 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

work, were scrupulous about making any addition 
to the manuscripts left by Mr. Macpherson. 

This scruple, surely, was ill judged. The editors 
must have been aware of the prevailing suspicion, 
that Macpherson had kept back his promised pub- 
lication so many years, for no other reason but to 
gain time, that he might finish his Galic composi- 
tions. Had the supplemental originals been given to 
the public, by these gentlemen, to whose characters 
no suspicion has attached, it might be presumed, 
they could not have injured the cause of Ossian. 
If these deficiencies can yet be supplied, it will be 
well ; but if they had been supplied at once, and 
without hesitation, it would have been much better. 
In spite of all suspicions, I can freely declare, as 
an individual, that I never questioned Mr. Mac- 
pherson's veracity, when he thought proper to speak 
out. I never doubted that he produced the poems 
from materials of that very kind which he professed 
to have received ; namely, a variety of traditional 
tales in prose, and fragments of verse, which bore 
the name of Ossian, and which this gentleman col- 
lected either from the mouths of the people, or from 
written copies of recent dates. But he has not told 
us plainly how much these materials were improved 
under his direction ; and I regret that the editors 
of the present work afford me no opportunity of 
correcting the opinion I had formed upon this sub- 
ject, from a few of Macpherson's mysterious hints, 
combined with the evidence of Mr. Smith.* Here 

* Author of the Galic Antiq. now Doctor iSmith, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 242 

is not one paragraph, here is not a single line col- 
lated with any copy prior to Mr. Macpherson's 
collection. 

Let us then proceed to consider the principal 
arguments of Sir John Sinclair, for the authenticity 
of these poems. 

In the first chapter, our respectable author pro- 
poses — ** A statement of the evidence adduced in 
" behalf of the authenticity of Ossian's poems, 
" independently of the Gaelic originals being now 
6i published, with some observations on the ob- 
jections which have been urged against their 
" authenticity." 

This subject is opened with a remark — " That 
" the Celtic tribes, in general, were addicted to 
" poetry, and accustomed to preserve, in verse, 
es whatever they considered to be peculiarly entitled 
" to remembrance." To this succeeds an inquiry — 
Ci Whether various Gaelic poems did not exist in 
** the Highlands, and Islands of Scotland, in remote 
" periods of our history." 

Here the affirmative, in general terms, may be 
granted without hesitation : for it is well known 
that the Celts had their Bards ; and no good reason 
can be assigned, why the Highlanders should not 
have had their poets, as well as the Irish, the Welsh, 
and other kindred tribes. But as this part of the 
Dissertation adduces some authorities, which are 
thought to allude particularly to the poems before 
us, it may be proper to consider the scope and com- 



243 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

prehension of those authorities. The celebrated 
Buchanan observes, that the Bards were held in 
great honour, both among the Grauls and Britons, 
and that their function and name doth yet remain 
amongst all the nations which use the old British 
tongue — in which the Highlanders of Scotland are 
certainly included. He adds — " They compose 
" poems, and those not inelegant, which the rhap- 
" sodists recite, either to the better sort, or to the 
" vulgar, who are very desirous to hear them ; and 
u sometimes they sing them to musical instru- 
" ments.'' 

This circumstance is still more strongly stated, 
in the description given, by the same distinguished 
author, of the Hebrides, or Western Islands. He 
there mentions that the inhabitants of those islands 
Cl Sing poems not inelegant, containing oommonly 
" the eulogies of valiant men ; and their Bards 
€i usually treat of no other subject."* 

These extracts of the historian furnish our author 
with an opportunity to urge the following questions : 
" Is it possible that such a judge of literary merit 
u as Buchanan, should have bestowed such praise 
" on the works of the ancient Scottish Bards, if 
(i they had not been justly entitled to his applause; 



* The words of Buchanan are these: — " Carmina autem non inculta 
il fundunt, quae rhapsodi proceribus, aut vulgo, audiendi cupido, recitant, 
" aut ad musicos organorum modos canunt."— " Accinunt autem carmen 
" non inconcinnc factum, quod fere laudes fortium virorum contineat ; nee 
" aliud fere arguuientum eoruni bardi tractant." 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 244 

u and if such poems actually existed in his time, 
f* and were recited by the Bards, from memory, 
16 where is the impossibility of their being handed 
i' down for one hundred and fifty, or two hundred 
p years longer? Or is it to be considered as in- 
iC credible, that those very poems which the most 
" elegant classical scholar of modern times should 
u consider as non tncutta, non inconcinnb facta, 
" should turn out to be the identical poems, which 
" have since been so justly celebrated as the cora- 
" positions of Ossian ?" 

In this passage our author affirms nothing ; but 
if I may hazard a remark, he seems by his mode of 
reasoning, to carry his conclusions a great way 
beyond his premises. 

Buchanan, in the first quotation, only speaks of 
the Bards of the Celtic tribes in general, Irish and 
Welsh, as well as Scotch : and if he alludes to any 
particular poems, it is evident, from his manner of 
expression, that he does not mean ancient poems, 
but the compositions of the very age in which he 
wrote. The Bards compose poems, which the 
rhapsodists recite. The authors as well as the 
reciters are persons of the historian's own times. 
The latter quotation certainly alludes to Scottish 
poems ; still, however, they are the works of 
Buchanan's own contemporaries. They are the 
poems which the Bards are now composing, the 
subjects of which they now treat. If, therefore, it 
should turn out, that Buchanan's Carmina non 



245 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

inculta, non inconcinnb facta, are the identical 
poems which have since been celebrated as the 
compositions of Ossian, what must follow ? Why, 
that we have good historical authority to fix their 
date, not in the conclusion of the third century, or 
the beginning of the fourth, but in the middle of 
the sixteenth. But however, as Buchanan has not 
named the Bard, nor any one of his poems, nor 
quoted a single verse, nor specified either of his 
subjects, we have still to regret that Ossian's claim 
to this moderate portion of antiquity, is not sup- 
ported by an authority so respectable. 

Sir John Sinclair's next authority is contained in 
this quotation from Johnston : — " Although it is 
" well known, that the Scots had always more 
" strength and industry to perform great deeds, 
" than care to have them published to the world ; 
" yet in ancient times they had, and held in great 
" esteem, their own Homers and Maros, whom they 
" named Bards. These recited the achievements of 
" their brave warriors, in heroic measures, adapted 
" to the musical notes of the harp ; with these they 
" roused the minds of those present, to the glory 
" of virtue, and transmitted patterns of fortitude to 
" posterity. This order of men do still exist, 
.*' amongst the Welsh and ancient Scots, and they 
" still retain that name in their native language."* 

* The original runs thus:—" Quamvis intelligunt omnes, plus semper 
" virium et industrial Scotis fuisse ad res agendas, quam commentationis ad 
" preedicandas, habuerunt taraen antiquitus, et coluerunt, suos Homeros et 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 246 

Great stress is laid upon the " Homers and Maros" 
of this passage, but it seems to me that the author 
means nothing more than to assert in general, that 
the ancient Scots (a name which embraces the Irish 
and the Highlander) as well as other Celtic tribes, 
had their Bards; that the subjects of these Bards 
were often martial ; and that, amongst the Welsh 
and Scots, the order was n©t extinct, in his time. 
Had Johnston known any thing of the Fingal, the 
Temora, and other poems, which are now ascribed 
to Ossian, he could not have affirmed that the Scots 
always had more vigour in performing than in cele- 
brating great deeds ; and if he knew nothing of 
these poems, his testimony can afford no support 
to the Bard of Selma. In describing the office of 
the Bards and the character of their compositions, 
he does not seem to have his eye, so much, upon 
these celebrated compositions, or upon any national 
subject whatsoever, as, upon the words ofAmmianus 
Marcellinus — u Bardi fortia virorum illustrium 
" facta, heroicis composita versibus, cum dulcibus 
iC lyrse modulis cantitarunt.'' Here is the fountain 
from which Johnston draws his supply of panegyric. 
Why then has not Sir John Sinclair quoted the 
original author, a Roman Historian, who wrote of 



" Marones, quos Bardos nominabant. Hi fortium virorum facta versibus 
" heroicis et lyrae modulis aptata concinebant ; quibus et prsesentium aminos 
" acuebant ad virtutis gloriam, et fortitudinis exempla ad posteros trans- 
" mittebant. Cujusmodi apud Cambros et priscos Scotos nee dum desidre ; 
" et nomen illud patrio sermone adhuc retinent." 

H H 



247 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

those very battles, which Fingal is reported to have 
fought, and Ossian sung? But if Ammianus, in 
his encomium upon the Bards, does not celebrate 
the strains of Ossian, we cannot suppose them to 
have been celebrated by his copyist, Johnston, who, 
had he been apprized of the preservation and high 
antiquity of such national treasures, was too precise 
a writer, and too good a patriot, to have delivered 
himself in these common-place descriptions, and to 
have lumped together the Welsh and Scots Bards, 
in the manner he does. Neither Buchanan, there- 
fore, nor Johnston, can be supposed to add a single 
leaf to the garland of the venerable Ossian. The 
authorities of three other writers are brought for- 
ward : but as they all wrote below the middle of the 
eighteenth century, and as they are adduced only to 
prove the existence of Galic poetry, previous to 
Mr. Macpherson's publications, in 1760, 1761, &c. 
we need not stop to consider their evidence. 

In the third section of this chapter, a variety of 
testimonies are produced, with a view to prove that 
Fingal, Ossian, &c. were Scots and not Irishmen. 
Of these, it will be proper to take some notice, as 
far as they may seem to apply to the great question, 
respecting the genuineness of the Galic poems. 

John Barbour, in a poem called " The Bruce," 
composed about the year 1375, incidentally men- 
tions our hero, by the name of Fyngal. This is 
deemed a circumstance of considerable importance, 
as appears by the words of our author ; — " It is 






THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 248 

singular that, in this most ancient of the Scottish 
works, in any respect connected with this sub- 
u ject, the hero should be called by the name of 
" Fingal; whereas in Ireland, he is uniformly dis- 
" tinquished by the name of Finn" (Fionn.) To 
this passage is subjoined the following note : — 
" Pinkerton, in his Enquiry, v. ii. p. 73, 74, remarks 
" it as a circumstance difficult to be accounted for, 
'• that the name of Fingal is unknown to the Irish, 
si and that the Scotch alone give the hero that 
" appellation." Here we seem to have a just cri- 
terion, whereby we may distinguish between Irish 
and Scotch tradition. If the Highlanders are con- 
tented to abide by this test, we shall soon perceive 
the consequences that must follow. 

Hector Boethius says — tc Some conjecture that 
" in those times lived Finnanus the son of Coelus 
Cl (in common language, Fyn Mac Coul), a man, as 
" they report, of an incredible stature, for they 
" describe him as being seven cubits in height. He 
** was of Scottish extraction, remarkable for the art 
" of hunting, and, in other exercises, to be dreaded, 
" on account of his unusual size of body." 

Here I must stop to make a few remarks, which 
will also apply to some of the following quotations. 
Instead of the Scottish name Fingal, we perceive the 
Irish Fyn ; instead of the amiable hero, a monstrous 
giant ; instead of the magnanimous and accom- 
plished warrior, a ferocious hunter, formidable only 



249 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

on account of his savage disposition and enormous 
corporeal strength. This is not the Fingal of the 
Galic poems : and the tradition of Scotland, two or 
three hundred years ago, being of a character so 
very inconsistent with those poems, instead of sup- 
porting their claim to antiquity, must be regarded 
as throwing great weight into the opposite scale. 

Again : Bishop Leslie informs us — Ci It is the 
" opinion of many, that one Finnanus the son of 
" Ccelus (in our language, Fyn ma Coul), a man of 
" a huge size, and sprung, as it were, from the race 
iC of ancient giants, at that time (namely, in the 
6C reign of Eugenius II.) lived amongst us." Here 
again the giant of fabulous tradition answers to his 
Irish name Fyn, and it is of this portentous cha- 
racter and his Lieutenant, Gaul, the son of Morni, 
that Bishop Douglas thus expresses himself in his 
ei Palice of Honour :" — 

" Greit Gow Mac Morne, and Fyn Mac Coul, and how 
" They suld be Goddis in Ireland as they say" 

The giant Fyn, whom ancient tradition acknow- 
ledges as a demigod of the pagan Irish, is thus 
described in another poem, written about the time of 
James IV. and entitled The Interlude of Droichis : — > 

u My fore grandsyr becht Fyn Mac Cowl, 
" That dang the Devil, and gait him yowll, 
" The sky is rained when he wald scowll, 
" And trublit all the air : 

a He gat my grandschir Gog Magog ; 
u Ay when he dansit, the warld wald schog ? 
(( Five thousand ellis yeid in his frog, 
f l Of Hieland pladdi* of hair." 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 250 

This, surely, is not the picture of that most 
amiable and refined hero, who is celebrated in the 
poems published by Mr. Macpherson. For my 
own part, I must acknowledge that I cannot recog- 
nize a single feature of his character, as delineated 
in those compositions, till we come down to the 
writers of the seventeenth century. Here Colmlle, 
in his " Whig's Supplication," published in 1681, 
condescends to place him upon a level with certain 
heroes of the human race : — 

" One man, quoth he, oft times hath stood, 
" And put to flight a multitude, 
" Like Samson, Wallace, and Sir Bewis, 
" And Fyn Mac Cowl, beside the Lewis"* 

We also find that Kirk, in 1684, commemorates 
the generous land of the heroes of Fingal, or 
Fionn, as the name is written in this author's 
original. But even after this, Nicolson, in an 
Essay, written anno 1702, takes notice of an old 
romance, of the valour and feats of Fin Mc* Cowl, 
a giant of prodigious stature. 

Upon these testimonies of Scottish writers, I 
would make a few obvious remarks. — In the first 
place, then, it must be granted to the worthy Baronet, 
that Scotland puts in her claim to some romantic 
traditions, relative to Fin Mac Coul. But the 
language of all the authors here quoted, down to 
the middle of the seventeenth century, at least, 
leave a strong impression upon the reader's mind, 

* That is, the Island of Lewis : one of the Hebrides. 



251 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

that not one of the authors here quoted, knew, or 
had even heard of the poems, now ascribed to 
Ossian. The general tradition of Scotland uniformly 
represents Fingal, or rather Fin, as a monstrous 
giant, a heathen god, or a powerful ar J terrific 
demon, that troubled all the air. This representa- 
tion must have originated in wild and grotesque 
fiction, of a character totally different from the fine 
effusions of the Galic muse. And it may fairly be 
inferred, that the poems in question did not exist, or 
were utterly unknown, in the ages when these fictions 
were invented, and during the whole period of their 
popularity. For if the son of Fingal celebrated 
the wars of his father, his songs must have been 
prior, in time, to the composition of the grotesque 
romances. And if the poems of Ossian have been 
preserved, from the third or, fourth century, to the 
present age, by oral tradition, they must have 
been highly popular, in every intervening age: for 
the nature of oral tradition is such, that it cannot 
lay down a tale for five hundred years, and then 
take it up again. The chain must be unbroken, or 
it is utterly lost. 

If Ossian's poems have been preserved by oral 
tradition, they must have taken a strong and imme- 
diate hold upon the minds of the people, and have 
maintained that hold uninterruptedly, through every 
succeeding age. Wherefore, upon the supposition 
that Ossian's poems are genuine, there could have 
been no age, subsequent to their composition, in 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 252 

which the truth of their story was so far obliterated, 
as to give place to the popular reception of lawless 
fable. 

But it appears by the testimony of the authors 
here cited, that the Scotch nation, from the earliest 
notice they take of Fingal or Fin, down to the 
seventeenth century, knew nothing of his character, 
but as a giant hunter, a demigod, or a foul fiend; 
whence it is evident, that the romantic fiction did 
prevail among the people, and that the story of the 
poems was utterly unknown. Therefore the poems 
did not exist in popular tradition, during those ages 
of romance, and consequently, they must be re- 
garded as the fabrication of more recent times : for 
it is not even pretended, that they were preserved 
in writing. 

Again : in Macpherson's Gaelic Ossian, the great 

hero of the poems is generally distinguished by the 

name Fionnghal, Fingal. If these poems were the 

genuine composition of Ossian ; if they remained 

in the mouths of the people, from the third to the 

eighteenth century, they must have constituted the 

very foundation of the mighty warrior's fame ; they 

must be regarded as the pure source from which the 

national tradition was supplied. And whilst the old 

Highlanders cultivated their acquaintance with the 

hero, through the medium of these poems, it is 

impossible they should have forgotten his proper 

name, as consecrated to posterity by their venerable 

Bard: it is also highly improbable, that popular 



253 THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 

tradition should have substituted any other name 
for this distinguished character, the glory of Cale- 
donia, and the mirror of heroism. Yet we find 
that Scotch tradition, invariably, excepting in one 
solitary instance, designates him by the appellation 
of Fionn, or Fin Mac Cout, which the Galic scholars 
of the present day regard as his Irish name. 

If we expunge a single passage in Barbour's 
poem, we know of no writer whatsoever, prior to 
Macpherson, who has announced to the public the 
name of Fingal. And as Barbour's verse required 
a name of two syllables only, T am greatly mistaken 
if his Fyng.cH is any thing more than a contraction 
of Fyn Mac Coul, omitting the Mac, and softening 
the c into g, agreeably to the genius of the Galic 
language. The Scotch literati of the eighteenth 
century, finding the name Fingal upon record, 
rightly judged that, as the name of a hero, it sounded 
much better than the simple monosyllable Fin; but 
they furnish the sceptical critic with occasion to 
object, that the poems which present us with this 
well-sounding term, have not only utterly departed 
from Scottish tradition, in delineating the character 
of Fin Mac Conl, but have even forgotten his 
proper name. They must therefore have been 
composed, or greatly tampered with, in very recent 
times. 

Upon the whole it may be concluded, that the 
character of Fingal has gradually improved with the 
refinement of the age, The hideous and terrific 



THE CLAIMS OP OSSIAN. 254 

giant of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
having contracted his stature, and lengthened his 
name, has become the amiable and accomplished 
hero of the eighteenth, and the grotesque romances 
of our great grandfathers have given place to the 
elegant and interesting poetry of cultivated society. 

Sir John Sinclair has produced satisfactory evi- 
dence, that in the days of Hector Boethius, Bishop 
Leslie, Bishop Douglas, and the author of the 
Interlude of Droichis, Scotch tradition knew nothing 
of the Fingal or Macpherson's English or Galic 
Ossian. I have supposed, that the poems, which 
now pass under that name, owe their origin to the 
romantic narratives which were popular, in the 
times of those authors : and notwithstanding the 
great pains which have been bestowed upon the cul- 
tivation of those poems, some lineaments of these, 
their genuine parents, occasionally appear, as when 
Fingal moves the rocks, overturns the woods, and 
diverts the course of the streams, with the impulse 
of his heels; or when he terrifies the birds of the 
air, the deer of the mountains, and even the ghosts 
of night, with the awful sound of his shield. 

Our author proceeds, in the next place, to point 

out certain Valleys, Mountains, Rocks, Hivers, &c. 

which retain the names of Fingal and his heroes, 

such as Dun'inn or Dunien, FingaVs Fori or Hill, — 

Kem Fein or Kemin, Fingal' s Steps or Stairs, &c. 

Amongst these examples, 1 should have expected 

to find Elgin, as I recollect that an ingenious etymo- 

1 1 



255 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

logist, extracted from this name, the words Shealg 
Fhionn, which he interpreted, FingaVs limiting field. 
But to the fastidious critic, all such etymologies are 
as light and airy as the thistle's heard, which amused 
the .young heroes of Ossian, in the days of their 
infancy. If the syllable in or inn, when it termi- 
nates the name of a place, must imply Fion or 
Fionn, why may it not be interpreted Old, Small, 
White, &c. the common appropriations of words, 
composed of those letters ? We have heard, indeed, 
of one or two caves, which retain the name of Fionn, 
or Fin Mac Cotd ; but it must be recollected, that 
Fin is the hero of the recent Irish Bards, and of 
romantic tradition, not of the classical Ossian. But 
however these names are to be understood, we 
cannot admit them as evidence, that Fin ever visited 
the places in which they occur. The renowned 
Arthur has a chair of considerable dimensions in 
Scotland ; he has another in Brecknockshire, three 
thousand feet high, and more than ten thousand 
wide : but what man in this enlightened age, sup- 
poses that Arthur ever sat in either of these mag- 
nificient seats ; that he baked his bread in his 
capacious oven in North Britain ; that he played 
with quoits of thirty or forty tons weight, or, that his 
cloth has been spread on all his grey tables, through- 
out the principality of Wales? 

I should suppose that the tales and rhapsodies 
which have prevailed amongst the Scottish Bards, 
of the last three or four hundred years, would 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 250 

abundantly account for all the local traditions of 
the country, as well as for the proverbial expressions 
commemorative of Fin and his heroes. It appears 
otherwise to the respectable author of this Disser- 
tation : — " This strain of evidence (says he) must 
" be satisfactory to every impartial reader; and it 
" is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Ossian 
" should be called the Prince of the Scottish Bards, 
" and the Homer of the ancient Highlanders.'' As 
1 would willingly preserve the character of impar- 
tiality, I pause to consider over again, what is the 
train of evidence here produced in favour of Ossian 
or his poems. Amongst all the writers quoted, 
there is not a man, prior to the middle of the 
eighteenth century, who even names the Bard, 
records one of his titles, points out a single piece, 
or a line of his composition, or as much as drops a 
hint whereby it might be guessed that he had known 
or even heard of such compositions. 

The preservation of Ossian's poems has generally 
been ascribed to oral tradition ; but in the fourth 
section of this chapter, we are reminded of what 
we had heard before, that some parts of them have 
been found in manuscript. Sir John Sinclair men- 
tions a manuscript, bearing the dates 1512, and 
1529, which contains two pieces, but neither of 
them in this collection. May we presume to ask, 
what is the size and the general subject of this 
manuscript? What is the length and the argument 
of the poems, supposed to be Ossian's ? Are they 



257 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

part of the original contents of the book, or are 
they written upon waste leaves? Are they in a 
legitimate Galic orthography, or merely in the 
random spelling of an English scholar, attempting 
to write Galic ? And finally, why are they not 
literally copied from the manuscript, into some of 
the dissertations or notes of these volumes, that 
they may be compared with the presumptive text 
of Ossian? 

Mr. Macpherson is said to have collected several 
volumes of manuscripts, in small 8vo. or large 
12mo.* These, if I mistake not, were, for the most 
part, Mac Vurrich's books. They were committed 
to writing for the first time, in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and we have no particular information relative 
to their subjects. We have not the name of a single 
poem which they^ontained. They seem, however, 
to have been curious. In candid hands, they might 
have served to elucidate several difficulties, in which 
the* question is at present involved : but what is 
become of them? 

The manuscripts of Mr. Macdonald, of Clan- 
ronald, and of Peter Macdonell, are mentioned. 
They contained something upon the subject of the 
Fingalians : but these are also lost. 

Lord Kaimes commemorates a manuscript of the 

first four books of ' Fingal, which Mr. Macpherson 

found in the Isle of Skye, dated as early as the 

* See Ossian of 1807, v. i. p. 37, v. iii. p. 43G, 449, 476, &c. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 258 

year 1403. Here we seem to obtain some direct in- 
formation. May we, however, venture to ask — was 
this manuscript in prose or verse? Was it in the 
Irish or the Highland dialect? These are the en- 
quiries of due caution, upon the present subject; 
not of impertinence or unnecessary scruple. The 
Irish and Scots had romantic tales in prose, upon 
the subject of Fingal's exploits. The Scots of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appear to have 
known that hero principally from such tales. There 
were manuscripts of Irish poems, scattered about 
the Highlands and the Isles. Mr. Macpherson, in 
his Dissertation upon the poems of Ossian, spe- 
cifies several such pieces, which he had collected. 
He describes an Irish manuscript poem, upon the 
same subject as his own Fingal ; but he is pro- 
foundly silent as to any Galic copy of that poem. 
Had he possessed a genuine copy, of 350 years 
standing, I think he would have mentioned it. 

Another gentleman speaks of a manuscript of 
some of the. poems of Ossian, dated 1410. What 
were the particular contents of this manuscript, 
and what was its dialect? Where is the man who 
is able and willing to produce a literal transcript of 
a single page, from either of these manuscripts? 

These questions do not imply the slightest dis- 
respect for either of the several reporters, or the 
smallest doubt, that some such papers were once 
in being. It may be admitted, that the Irish, and 
even the Scots, had some romantic tales, relative 



259 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

to Fionn and his heroes, as early as the beginning 
of the fifteenth century ; but we want documents 
to prove, that the identical poems, translated by 
Mr. Macpherson, did exist at that time, in the 
same language and phraseology which they now 
display. The friends of Ossian must be aware of 
the declarations made by Dr. Johnson, and Dr. 
Shaw, that, upon inquiry, all the manuscripts 
proved to be Irish, It is known to them, that Mr. 
Macpherson mentions several Irish, but not one 
Galic, or Earse manuscript. Hence it may be pre- 
sumed, that most of the old papers here reported, 
were in the language of Erin. Their loss, however, 
is to be regretted. They must have been calculated 
to throw considerable light upon the subject in 
debate. What is become of them all ? If Mac- 
pherson destroyed them, what were his probable 
motives to do so? I can think but of one. 

Sir John Sinclair's great object, in this Disserta- 
tion is to prove, that Galic copies of Ossian did 
exist, prior to Macpherson's time. He therefore 
lays particular stress upon a collection made by 
the Rev. John Farquharson, a Roman catholic 
clergyman, about the year 1745. This was carried 
by the collector to the Scottish College at Douay, 
in Flanders, and there left by him when he re- 
turned to Scotland, in the year 1773. 

As no one in the college, after this gentleman's 
departure from it, could read the book, it was 
thrown aside as useless, and the leaves, as long as 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 260 

they lasted, were torn out to light the fire. This is 
also a subject of regret, as it appears to have been 
a book of value, which it is now impossible to 
replace. It is described as a large-paper folio, 
about three inches thick, and written in a small 
letter. It should seem, by the collated testimony 
of several respectable clergymen' that it contained 
either the whole, or most part, or a considerable 
part of the poems, published by Macpherson, and 
that the Galic originals either equalled or surpassed 
the merit of the English Ossian. This information 
was derived from Mr. Farquharson himself, who, 
during his residence at the college, had been ac- 
customed to compare Macpherson's translation with 
his own Galic manuscript. 

It would be extremely illiberal to suppose, that 
the gentlemen who gave in this report, conspired 
together in a premeditated deception. They cer- 
tainly meant to tell the plain truth ; at the same 
time, it is obvious, lhat they were not competent to 
the discovery of the whole truth. There was not 
one of them who could read the book : and when 
they all saw it daily used as waste paper, there was 
not a man amongst them, so much interested in its 
fate, as to rescue from destruction, a single leaf. 
Their acquaintance with the subject and their atten- 
tion to it, must have been slight indeed. All they 
knew amounted to this, that Mr. Farquharson, 
having Macpherson's English Ossian before him, 
occasionally turned to his own Galic manuscript, 



261 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

and pointed out certain passages which he affirmed 
to be the original of what he was reading ; and this 
circumstance they reported, upon a recollection of 
thirty-three years. Notwithstanding, therefore, it 
might be surmised, upon the first glance at their 
evidence, that this manuscript contained the whole, 
or nearly the whole, of Mapherson's poems, in the 
form in which he published them, it will appear, 
upon reflection, that this could not have been the 
real state of the case. For, at the present day, we 
are not to seek for proofs, that the poems were 
collected by Macpherson, in detached fragments, 
from discordant recitals, and mixed with abun- 
dance of heterogeneous matter. It required great 
exertion of judgment and industry, to arrange, 
reconcile, and purify, such materials. And it is 
impossible that any two persons, acting indepen- 
dently of each other, should have hit upon the very 
same mode of executing a task, so difficult and 
laborious. Hence there must, of necessity, be con- 
siderable difference between the adjustment of parts, 
in the English Ossian, and in the Douay manuscript. 
I am, therefore, disposed to receive the account of 
this book, which is given by Mr. John Farquharson, 
the collector's relation, who had, probably, more 
accurate knowledge of the subject, than the other 
gentlemen. 

" I perfectly recollect (says Mr. Farquharson) to 
" have seen in 1775 and 1776, the manuscript which 
" you mention : but being no Gaelic scholar, all that 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 262 

" 1 can attest is, my having repeatedly heard the 
" compiler assert, it consisted of various Gaelic 
" songs y a few fragments of modern composition, 
" but chiefly extracts of Ossian's poems, col- 
" lected during his long residence in Strati lglass, 
" previously to the rebellion of 45; and to have 
" seen him compare the same with Macpherson's 
" translation, and exclaiming frequently at its 
" inaccuracy." 

All this is probable : and it is abundantly suf- 
ficient to explain the whole mystery of the Douay 
manuscript. 

Extracts from the most splendid paragraphs of 
the popular tales, which related to Fionn and his 
heroes, were versified at various periods, and were 
familiarly recited in the Highlands, sixty years ago. 
Some of these fragments, or extracts, were col- 
lected by Mr. Farquharson, who, being an admirer 
of Galic poetry, rendered himself familiar with the 
contents of his own book. Hence he could readily 
turn from a brilliant passage in Macpherson's trans- 
lation, to some extract of a similar kind, in his Galic 
collection. The passages thus compared were found 
either to correspond, and give the critic an im- 
pression of their identity, or else to differ so much 
as to produce an angry exclamation against the 
translator's inaccuracy. Hence it may be inferred 
that, had the Douay manuscript survived the de- 
plorable neglect, or rather the literary treason of 
these students, it would not have exhibited a corres- 



263 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 

pondence with the text of a single poem, as ft 
appears in the present edition. It would only have 
proved, what 1 have always been ready to admit, 
that detached parts of the same tales, which are 
here exhibited, did exist in Galic verse, independent 
of the labours of Mr. Macpherson and his coad- 
jutors. My meaning, with its due restrictions, will 
be more fully explained in the sequel. 

I now proceed to consider Sir John Sinclair's 
proof — " That the existence of Swaran and other 
" personages, mentioned in the poems of Ossian ? 
" is authenticated by Danish Historians." 

To this part of the Dissertation I turned with 
eager curiosity, and some glimmering of hope, in 
favour of the Galic Bard. The characters oiStarno, 
king of Lochlin, and his son Swaran, as well as 
their military achievements, are utterly unknown 
to modern historians; but I was here taught to 
expect the discovery of their names and actions 
amongst the ancient monuments of Denmark : and 
I was prepared to admit such a discovery as a 
circumstantial proof, that the tales, relative to 
Fingal and his connections, are not wholly destitute 
of foundation in historical fact. That the reader 
may be qualified to judge how far these views have 
been realized, I shall lay before him the entire sec- 
tion, with a few cursory remarks. 

" The works of Ossian are certainly to be con- 
" sidered more in the light of the effusions of a 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 264 

f< poet, than the details of an historian.* At the 
" same time, if there were any real foundation for 
" the circumstances therein mentioned, there was 
u every reason to expect that, however remote the 
" period, yet that some traces might doubtless be 
" found of those old transactions, in the historians 
" of Denmark. With a view of ascertaining that 
" point, I applied to the Rev. Mr. Rosing, Pastor 
a of the Danish Church, in London, from whom I 
'■' received the following particulars, from a work 
" of great authority, namely, Suhm's History of 
u Denmark. 

" The author gives an account of Gram, a Nor- 
" wegian prince, who had acquired a territory in 
" the western parts of Jutland. He had espoused 
" the cause of a princess, daughter of &ygtrygg> 
" king of East Gotha, who was persecuted by a 
" rude suitor, whom she greatly disliked, and who, 
" it would appear, was the celebrated Swaran* 
" Gram took upon him her defence, gained her 
" favour, but afterwards slew her father, who op- 
" posed him." 

Suhm then relates the following particulars:— 
ct Gram had hardly disengaged himself from this 
" contest, before he was obliged to begin another 
" with Swaran, king of the West Gothes, who 
16 would revenge the insult and injury he had suf- 

* But it must be recollected, that Ossian is supposed to relate the history 
of his own time, and to an audience that could judge of the truth of recent 
transactions : if, therefore, his works are genuine, they must also be regarded 
as, in a great measure, historically authentic. 



265 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

u fered from Gram, and besides, laid claim to the 
" East Gothian kingdom, which, however, none of 
u them, it seems, obtained, as one Humble governed 
cc there, not long after. Swaran was the son of 
c * Starno. He had carried on many wars in Ireland, 
tc where he had vanquished most of the heroes that 
" opposed him, excepting Cuchullin, who, assisted 
" by the Gaelic or Caledonian king, Fingal, in the 
<c present Scotland, not only defeated him, but 
u even took him prisoner ; but had the generosity 
" to send him back again to his country : and these 
" exploits can never be effaced from men's memory, 
" as they are celebrated in the most inimitable 
" manner, by the Scotch poet, Ossian; and Swaran 
" has thereby obtained an honour which has been 
f denied to many heroes greater than he. With 
u such an adversary Gram was now to contend. 
" They met in single combat, and Swaran lost his 
" life : he left sixteen brothers, seven born in wed- 
" lock, and nine by a concubine. These Gram 
" was obliged to meet at once, and was fortunate 
U enough to slay them all." 

" Mr. Rosing observes that the author gives no 
" date to this event, but in p. 98, he places the 
" death of Gram in the year 240, and from the con- 
" text of the history, the transactions with Swaran 
u cannot have happened many years before.* 

* This Swaran cannot be made to synchronize with Ossian's king of 
Loclilin, who invaded Ireland sometime after the expedition of Carausius in 
the year 287. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 266 

u The existence of Swaran, son of Starno, and 
46 his wars in Ireland, and his having been defeated 
" by Fingal, as related by Ossian, are therefore 
Ci authenticated by the historians of Denmark ; and 
" in their annals, a number of particulars are related 
" regarding the manners of the times, which confirm 
" many of the particulars mentioned by Ossian. It 
" is very satisfactory to have been the means of 
" bringing forward a new, and, at the same time, 
" so convincing a proof of the authenticity of these 
u ancient poems : and hence, indeed, it appears, 
" that the more the subject is investigated, the more 
" clearly will that authenticity be established." 

Such is this celebrated section, so formidable to 
the adversaries of Ossian, and closed by the worthy 
Baronet with so much self-complacency. But let 
us look about us a little. Where does the Danish 
historian obtain his authority for the name of 
Swaran, the son of Starno ? Only in the poems of 
Ossian/ — I correct myself: we are told, in a note 
upon the place — " Swaran, no doubt, occurs by the 
" name of Searin, in the very old poem Voluspa, 
Ci which I believe to be from the sixth or seventh 
" century, where a hill is denominated after him." 
How is this ! The Voluspa mentions a hill by the 
name of Sea-rin, which to me seems to mean pro- 
montory, or a ridge jutting into the sea: this hill 
must, undoubtedly, have been named after some 
prince: but there was no prince from whom such 
a name could have been derived, excepting the 



267 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Swaran of Ossian. Consequently, the occurrence 
of the word Searin as the name of a hill, is a 
demonstrative proof, that Swaran was a real his- 
torical character. Very well ! But where are we 
to find the title of this Searin ox promontory, to the 
kingdom of the West Gothes ? This is also pointed 
out in a note : — " In Cath-Loda (a poem of Ossian), 
" Swaran is called King of the Lakes, which is very 
(i applicable to West Gotha." 

For the wars which this Swaran, Searin or 
Promontory, carried on in Ireland, and for his 
intercourse with the Caledonian Fingal, the poems 
of Ossian are the historian's sole authority, as it 
must be evident to every one who attentively reads 
the passage quoted above. Suhm met with some 
legendary tale, of a contest between Gram and a 
nameless adversary. He labours to identify this 
unknown hero with the Swaran of Ossian ; and 
supposing, the connection to be duly effected, by 
the medium of the hill Searin, he grounds all his 
imaginary facts of the achievements of this dubious 
character, upon the faith of the Bard : and the 
friends of Ossian, reimport the very same facts, to 
support the credit of the Caledonian Homer. Is 
it thus the historians of Denmark furnish a new and 
convincing proof of the authenticity of these ancient 
poems ! It is clear from what has appeared above, 
that Suhm can step very lightly over tender ground : 
yet, notwithstanding his dexterity in the manage- 
ment of his mud pattens, he has by no means been 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 268 

successful, in the pursuit of Ossian's subjects. He 
observes in a note — " Our North, in general, is 
" constantly called Lochlin in these poems, which 
" name is still given to it, in the Welsh, Galic, and 
" Irish languages. Many particular names of kings 
" and countries, in Lochlin, also occur, of which 
" none hardly can be explained from our language, as 
il they are entirely transformed after the Gaelic." 

Let us then go on to examine whether the original 
Galic of Ossian will afford us any thing of a more 
satisfactory nature, than what we have hitherto seen. 

The patrons of our Bard, from Macpherson down- 
wards, have thrown out several significant hints, 
relative to the structure of his verse, as affording 
some peculiar assistance to the memory, and thus 
facilitating the preservation of his works, from age to 
age, by oral tradition alone. Thus Sir John Sinclair 
informs us—- u Though the poems were not composed 
" in rhyme, yet there was an emphasis laid upon 
" particular syllables, of a similar sound, in every 
" line, which greatly assisted the memory." As I 
cannot pretend to the possession of a Galic ear, I 
could have wished that some of these gentlemen 
had analized the principles of the several kinds of 
verse, contained in the poems of Ossian, in order to 
assist the student in pronouncing the language, and 
discriminating the harmony of the bardic strain. 

Dr. Shaw, in his Analysis, only tells us compen- 
diously, and not very distinctly — " The measure of 
'J Ossian's poetry is very irregular and various. 



269 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

66 Generally he has couplets of eight, though they do 
iC not rhyme, and seven, and sometimes nine syl- 
lables. These feet are most commonly trochee 
" and dactyle. The trochee occupies the first, the 
" dactyle the second and third, and a long syllable 
" ends the line." 

This disposition of feet gives a cadence, something 
to the following effect:— 

Morven's hero resembles the song, 
Vaulting, scampering, scudding along j 
Bolt, from Selma to Lochlin he goes, 
Hunting, hampering, taming the foes. 
Thus the rock from the mountain is torne, 
Thus the stream through the valley is borne, 
Thus the ghost in the tempest does cry, 
Thus, at Midsummer, buzzes the fly. 

But although I cannot ascertain the cadence, and 
the quantity of the syllables, in the several kinds of 
verse ; yet, if the eye may be depended upon, I 
can safely affirm, that the general body of these 
poems consists not of couplets, but tetrastichs, or 
stanzas of four lines each, and that, in many 
instances, the verses rhyme alternately, or else, 
the second and fourth lines of the same stanza 
rhyme together. 

I must give some examples, and I hope the 
curious reader will not be displeased, to contem- 
plate a few choice specimens of the original Ossian, 
and of the manner in which he is translated, by the 
scholars of Caledonia : but lest others should be 
appalled, at the sight of Galic stanzas, it may be 
proper to apprize them, that I only request their 




THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN.' 270 

attention to the mechanical disposition of the letters. 
Without such a direct glance at the chair of Ossian, 
we shall never be able to discriminate his real 
features. The poem called Oinamorul, opens with 
these tetrastichs : — * 

i. 

Marghluaiseas solus speur fo scleo, 
Air Larmoii mor, a's uaine torn ; 
Mar sinthig sgeul nan triath nach beo 
Air m'anam is an oidhche trom. 

2. 
Nuairthreigeas filidh caoin a mhuirn 
A chlarsach chiuil san talla ard ; 
Thig guth gu chluais Oisein o chul, 
Mosgladh anma an tur nam bard. 

3. 

? S e guth nam bliadlma thuit a ta ann, 
Tional uile a mall le'n gniomh. 
Glacam-sa na sgeula nach fann 
Cuiream sios iad am fonn gun ghiomh. 



* V. i. p. 177. Thus translated:— 

Vt movetur lux ccelorum sub vapore, 
Super Larmone magna, cujus est viridissimus collis, 
Sic venit historia procerum haud vivorum 
Super meum animum nocte gravi. 

Quando relinquit poeta blandus suam blanditiam 
Ejus cithara, canora in aula sublime, 
Venit vox ad aurein Ossiani a tergo, 
Expergefaciens ejus animam in torpore bardorum. 

Est vox annorum quae cecidernnt, qua? adest, 
Colligens omnia hue cum eorum factis. 
Captem ego historias haud futiles, 
Mittam deorsum eas in cantionem sine fraude. 






271 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

4. 

Cha shruth tha dorcha fonn an righ, 
'Nuair dh'eirease measg stri nan teud ; 
O laimh-ghil an Lutha nam frith, 
Malmhina, cruth clith gun bheud. 

5. 
A Lutha nan teud a's glaine fuaim ! 
Gun samhchair air do chruachan ard, 
Nuair shiubhlas geal-lamh na stuaim 
Air chlairsaich fo dhuan nam bard. 

6. 
Sholuis nan smuainte dorcha truagb, 
Tha tarruing suas air m'anam dall ; 
A nighean Thoscair nan ceann-bheart cruaidh, 
Thoir cluas do chaoin f huaim tha mall ! 

When the reader has just cast his eye over these 
twenty-four first lines of Oinamorul, I think he 
must readily acknowledge, that they resolve them- 
selves into six tetrastichs, the lines of which, for 
the most part, rhyme alternately, or else, the second 
and fourth rhyme together. Such tetrastichs, or 
rhyming stanzas, of four lines each, are frequent in 
all the shorter poems ; nor are they wanting in 



Non flumen, quod est obscurum, melos regis, 
Quando surgit e media contentione chordarum 
Ab manu Candida in Lutha saltuum, 
Malvina, forma concinna. sine defectu ! 

Lutha chordarum quarum est purissimus sonus! 
Sine silentio super tuis praecipitus altis, 
Quando pergit Candida manus modestiee 
Super citharam sub carmine bardorum. 

O lux cogitationum obscurarum, miserarum, 

Quae se-trahunt sursum super meum animum caecum, 

O filia Toscaris galearum durarum, 

Adhibe aurem blando sono qui est lentus ! 






THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 272 

Fingal and Temora. I have marked nearly two 
hundred such stanzas, in the former of those poems, 
and about half that number in the latter. Rhyming 
tetrastichs were, therefore, familiarly known to the 
author or authors of all these poems. 

To a mere English scholar, the rhyme between 
the first and third line, in the second and sixth 
stanza, appears to be defective ; but, according to 
the prosody of the Irish grammarians, it is legiti- 
mate and perfect. These literati, as I remarked in 
a former part of this Essay, have arranged the letters 
of the alphabet in fanciful and artificial classes : 
and they deem it sufficient, for the purpose of rhyme 
or correspondence, that a letter should be answered 
by one of its own class, agreeably to the following 
distribution :-— 

The vowels a, o, u, are broad — e and i, small. 
Diphthongs and triphthongs generally follow the 
class of their first vowel. Of the consonants, c,p 9 
t, are soft — b, d, g, hard — ch, fh, ph, sh, th 9 
rough — m, 11, nn, rr, ng, robust — bh, dh, gh, mh, l> 
n, r, light— f, weak, sometimes rough — s, barren — - 
h, hollow. 

Now if, by this scale, we compare the word 
mhuirn, which ends the first line in the second 
stanza, with chid, which terminates the third line, 
we shall find that ui in the former word, is a broad 
diphthong, and u, in the latter, a broad vowel — rn, 
in the former, and /, in the latter term, are light 



273 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

consonants : the rhyme,* therefore, between mhnirn 
and chid, in spite of the eye and the ear of the 
Gothic scholar, is legitimate and perfect. So again, 
in the sixth stanza, truagh and cruaidh make a 
perfect rhyme, because gh and dh pertain to the 
same class of light consonants. 

This feature, in the versification of Ossian, pre- 
senting itself so readily, induces me to look more 
narrowly into the stanzas cited above. Amongst 
the ornaments of Irish tetrastichs, we generally 
find a concord or agreement, between the last word 
of the first line, and some word in the body of the 
second ; as also between the end of the third line, 
and some word in the fourth. The same peculiarity 
appears in the stanzas before us. 

Thus, stanza 2, mhuirn, in the first line, and 
chiuil in the second, make a concord, because r, n, 
and /, pertain to the same class. So also tur, in 
the fourth line, answers to chul in the third, r and I 
being of the same class. In stanza 3, we have the 
like concords between ann and mall, and again, 
"between^/aim and fonn; nn and //being accounted 
robust consonants, and a and o broad vowels. In 
the fourth stanza, stri accords with righ, and clith 
with frith, only instead of righ we ought to read ri 9 

* That I may not puzzle my reader nor myself with the uncouth terms of 
Irish grammar, I shall call the correspondence of final syllables rhyme; and 
the correspondence of a final syllable in one line, with another syllable in 
the middle of the next, concord or agreement. Let it also be noted, that I do 
not attempt to analyze these stanzas, any farther than what relates to such 
correspondences. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 274 

an orthography authorized by the Irish Bards, and 
even admitted in the poems of Ossian. Thus the 
repeated alterations and improvements of the or- 
thography of our poet, have occasionally displaced 
the rules of prosody. But the same rules appear 
again, stanza 6, in the concords between traagh 
and suas, and between cruaidh and chaoin ; s being 
a barren consonant, admits of any associate that 
may present itself — uai and aoi are broad triph- 
thongs, and dh and n pertain to the class of light 
consonants. Hence it is evident, that the composer 
of these verses was not only acquainted with 
rhyming tetrastichs, but also, with that identical 
system of arbitrary classification, to which the Irish 
grammarians subjected the letters of the alphabet. 
How, otherwise, was it possible for him to have 
discovered, that such words as nihuirn and chul — 
chid and iur — ann and mall, made perfect concords 
or rhymes ? 

In this part of my Essay, the cursory reader may 
not find much entertainment ; but T must bespeak 
his patience and attention for a few pages. He 
has here presented to him, the very thing he has 
often called for— not hypothetical reasoning relative 
to the poems of Ossian, but plain matter of fact. 
It must be a subject of no small curiosity, to con- 
template this renowned Caledonian prince, of the 
third century, close at his studies, with the Irish 
grammars of the seventeenth century, laid open 
before him. The Scots have surely been very 



275 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

moderate in their charge against the Irish: they 
only accuse them of having stolen the poems of 
Ossian, whilst it should seem, that they laid their 
rapacious hands upon his grammar also ! In order 
to render the fact incontrovertible, that this gram- 
mar was known to the Bard, who composed the 
present poems, I shall consider a few tetrastichs, 
in which the rhyme is less obvious to the general 
reader. In the first Duan of Cath-Loda, v. 10&, 
is the following : — * 

A Thorcuil-torno nan ciabh glas., 
Am bheil astar do chas mu Lula. 
Do ghath teine mar eibhle dol as 
Aig sruth a tha cas fo dhubhra. 

Here the concords between glas and chas— as 
and cas, are sufficiently obvious ; but /, dh, bh, and 
r, all belong to the class of light consonants, it 
therefore follows that, according to the laws of Irish 
prosody, Lula and dhubhra constitute a perfect 
double rhyme. 

The two first stanzas in Carricthura : — t 

An d'f hag thu gorm-astar nan speur 
A mhic gun bheud, a's or-bhui ciabh 
Tha dorsa na h-oiche dhuit fein 
Agus pailliun do chlos 'san iar. 

* V. i. p. 11. Translation:-— 
O Torcultorno cirrorum glaucorum, 
An est iter tuorum pedum circa Lulam, 
Tuo radio ignis instar prunae se-extinguentis, 
Ad fluentum quod est praeceps sub umbra ? 

t V. i. p. 97. Translation :— 
An reliquisti tu caeruleum iter caelorum, 
O fill sine defectu, cujus est aurato-flavus cirrus ? 
Sunt portae noctis tibi ipsi, 
Et tentorium tuee requietis in occidente. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 276 

Thig na stuaidh mu'n cuairt gu mall 
A choirnhead fir a's glaine ghruaidh ; 
A' togail fo eagal an ceann 
Ri d' f haicinn cho aillidh 'na d' shuain. 

In the first of these stanzas, the termination speur 
rhymes with the termination Jein, eu and ei being 
small diphthongs, and r and n light consonants— 
ciabh and iar rhyme, for the same reasons. Mall, 
in the second stanza, rhymes imperfectly with ceann, 
a being a broad vowel, and ea a small diphthong : 
this, however, has the licence of Irish prosody: // 
and nn in these words pertain to the class of robust 
consonants. Gruaidh rhymes with shuain, dh and 
n being light consonants ; and ceann forms a concord 
with the syllable cinn in f 'haicinn. The system upon 
which these stanzas are constructed is thus ascer- 
tained, beyond the possibility of dispute. 

The same poem, v. 23 : — * 

Bha mhaile ghorm mu cheann an t-sonn, 
Mar nial nach trom air aghaidh grein, 
Nuair ghluaiseas e'na eideadh donn, 
A* feuchainn leth a shoills 'san speur. 

A stanza in which the principles of Irish prosody 
are more strictly observed, never came from the 
pen of a Bard. Sonn, in the first line, rhymes with 

Veniunt fluctus circumcirca tarde, 

Visum virum, cirjus est purissima gena, 

Tollentes sub metu suum caput, 

Inter te cernendum adeo formosum in tuo sopore. 

* V. i. p. 99. Translation : — 
Est galea caerulea circa caput herois, 
Sicut nubes haud gravida super vultu solis y 
Quando movet-se ille in veste subfusca, 
Ostendens dimidium suae lucis in caelo. 



277 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

donn, in the third : it also accords with from, in the 
middle of the second, nn and m being robust con- 
sonants. Grein in the second line, rhymes with 
speur in the fourth, ei and eu being small diphthongs, 
and n and r light consonants. Dona, in the third, 
accords with shoill in the fourth, o being a broad 
vowel, and oi a broad diphthong — nn and 7/ taking 
their place amongst the robust consonants. 

Examples of this kind might be adduced, from 
every part of these poems ; but, in dealing out 
Galic stanzas, I must have some regard to my 
reader's appetite. Let me then relieve him, for the 
present, by asking a question in plain English. — By 
what means could Ossian have discovered, that such 
syllables as cfoul and tur — ann and mall — threin and 
deigh — speur and fein — grein and speur — donn and 
shoill, and the like, constituted legitimate rhymes ? 
His untutored ear could never have informed him 
of this circumstance, unless it be said, that the 
whole system is founded in obvious principles of 
nature. But to me at least, it appears so fanciful 
and arbitrary, that I should deem it impossible for 
two societies of men, without mutual communication, 
to have adjusted it alike, in all its parts. If there- 
fore, the Scots insist upon the genuineness, and 
antiquity of these poems, it remains for them to 
prove, or at least, to assume, that the system of 
prosody, taught by the Irish grammarians, of the 
seventeenth century, was derived from the school of 
Ossian. But upon that hypothesis, it must follow, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 278 

that Ossian was intimately acquainted with letters* 
He must have examined them with the penetra- 
tion of a conjurer, in order to ascertain which was 
soft, which was hard, which was rough, which was 
light, &c. especially, when it became requisite for 
him to adjust the several classes of the quiescent 
consonants and combinations. He must have often 
paused over the harp of Selma, to award the several 
claims of the broad aphthongs, ophthongs or uph- 
thongs, and the small ephthongs and iphthongs. He 
must have also known, and duly attended to, the 
whole orthographical scheme of the present Irish 
language: for a slight deviation from that ortho- 
graphy, would throw the whole fabrick of his verse 
into confusion and utter ruin, as might be proved 
from several passages, in the present edition of his 
poems. But if these various branches of knowledge 
did not appertain to the age and country of Ossian, 
the Galic scholars, however reluctantly, must admit, 
that the Caledonian Bard has employed a secretary 
of more recent times, and of the school of Erin. — No 
possible doubt can remain upon this subject. 

Although the general principles of Irish prosody 
pervade the tetrastichs of Ossian, it is acknow- 
ledged, that there are several paragraphs which, 
at present, exhibit but a partial attention to the 
minuter rules of this prosody. Such deviations 
may be owing to various causes, amongst which we 
may reckon the repeated alterations of the ortho- 

M M 



279 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

graphy. It is well known that Macpherson was 
very desirous of devising some new scheme of 
orthography for these poems, and that, for some 
years, he was resolutely bent upon publishing them, 
under the disguise of Greek letters. He was pro- 
bably aware, that the only established orthography 
of the language, namely, the Irish, would betray 
the true principles of the versification ; and appre- 
hensive of the critical decision that must follow. 
With these feelings, it must have been his wish to 
obliterate the Irish mark, whenever it appeared 
too conspicuous. The editors of this work have 
restored the genuine orthography, to a certain 
degree. Truth and literary integrity demanded of 
them something more than what they have done ; 
but they have done abundantly too much for the 
cause of the Caledonian Ossian. 

Another cause of the present irregularity of the 
verse is the change or transposition of several words 
or lines, by illiterate reciters, or superficial critics, 
without regard to the laws of the metre. Great 
allowance must also be made for the mutilation of 
several stanzas by Mr. Macpherson, who was anxious 
to suppress every thing that might derogate from 
the majesty of Ossian; and likewise for the con- 
nective paragraphs, which he found it necessary to 
introduce, from the traditional tales, or from the 
resources of his own genius. I subjoin a few ex- 
amples of stanzas, in which I conceive the metre to 
be injured, from some of these causes. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 280 

Cath-Loda, Buan i. v. 132:—* 

Bha Torcul-torno, labhair an oigh, 
Aig Lula nan sruth mor a' tamh ; 
Bha thuinneas aig Lula nan seod — 
Tha 'n t-slige corr an diugh na laimh. 

The word seod in the third line, throws this stanza 
into confusion : it will neither answer as a rhyme 
to oigh, in the first, nor accord with any word in 
the fourth, as it ought to do: it must therefore be 
regarded as corrupt. It is here translated heroum ; 
but the only meaning of seod which I find in Llwyd's 
Dictionary, is a Jewel, or a seal. The word intended 
by the Bard is seadh, an antiquated term, implying 
strong or brave. This would restore the whole 
stanza. Oigh, in the first, rhymes with seadh in 
the third, and forms a concord with mor in the 
second : tamh, in the second, rhymes with laimh, 
in the fourth ; and seadh makes a perfect concord 
with daigh. 

I am pretty confident this correction is right, as 
I observe the same word, seod, occasions the like 
confusion in other places. Thus, Carricthura, v. 39, 
the four lines of a stanza end with form — sheol — 
form — seod. The last word cannot rhyme with 
sheol, because d and / pertain to different classes ; 
but restore seadh, and the rhyme and sense will be 



* V. i. p. 13. Translation :— 

Erat Torcultorno, locuta est virgo, 
Ad Lulam fluminum magnorum quiescens ; 
Erat ejus habitatio ad Lulam heroum ; 
Est concha eximia hodie in ejus manu. 



281 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

correct. Again ; Carthon, v. 7, seod is confronted 
with torr, which is incorrect — instead of seod, read 
its synonym sonn, and the alliteration is restored. 
Cath-Loda, Duan iii. v. 1 8, has this tetrastich :— * 

Le d' thri guthaibh thig gun stad, 
Soillsicheadh gu grad na dh'f halbh ; 
Tog samhla nan laoch, nach robhlag, 
Air chiar am, a chaidh fada thall. 

Here stad accords with grad, and rhymes with 
lag, d and g being hard — lag accords withyac?-a; 
but thall will not rhyme with J halbh, 11 being robust, 
and / and bh light. I find, however, that instead 
of thall we have authority for thai, with a single /, 
and that is the orthography which this stanza re-* 
quires, to render it perfect. 

The next stanza: — f 

A Thoirne nan stoirm 's nan cruach, 
Chi mi shuas mo dhream ri d' thaobh ; 
Fionnghal ag aomadh fo ghruaim 
Thar uaigh Mhic Roinne nach b'f haoin. 

This has, evidently, been altered, without due 
attention to the metre. Cruach will neither accord 
with dhream, nor rhyme with ghruaim, ch being 



* V. i. p. 53. Translation : 
Cum tuis ternis vocibus veni sine (mora) stando, 
Illuminans ocyus eos qui abierunt ; 
Tolle simulacrum bellatorum, qui non fuerunt ignavi, 
Super fuscum tempus, quod ivit longe ultra. 

f Translation: — 
O Thorna procellarum et praecipitiorum, 
Cerno ego supra meum agmen ad tuum latus ; 
Fingalern se-inclinantem sub tetricitate, 
Super sepulchrum filii Ronae, qui non fuit languidui. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 282 

rough and m robust — transpose cruach and stoirm> 
in the first line, and the rhyme is complete through- 
out. Still, however, dhream will not accord with 
stoirm, ea being small and oi broad. Instead of 
dhream read dhraim, and the stanza will be as per- 
fect as any verse in Virgil. 
Carricthura, v. 35 : — * 

'S taitneach leam aoibhneas a bhroin, 
Mar dhruchd mothar earraich chaoin 
Fo 'n lub geug dharaig nan torr, 
'S an duilleach og ag eirigh maoth. 

An Irish grammarian could not prove this tetras- 
tich, as it now stands ; but transpose earraich and 
chaoin in the second line, and instead of torr read 
tor, with a single r, as we are warranted to do, and 
the verse will be complete in all its parts. Bhroin 
will accord with chaoin, and rhyme with tor: 
earraich will rhyme with maoth, ch and th being 
rough, and tor will accord with og in the fourth line. 

The same poem, v. 77 : — f 

Fada Bhinnbheil, fada thall, 
Tha m'astar gu blar le Fionnghal. 
Cha 'n 'eil mo choin fein ri m'thaobh, 
No mo cheum air fraoch nan gleann. 

* V. i. p. 99. Translation:— 
Est jucundum mihi gaudium luctus, 
Sicut ros moderatus veris blandi, 
Sub quo flectitur ramus quercus tumulorum, 
Foliis novis surgentibus tenere. 

t Translation: — 
Procul, Vinvela, procul ex adverso, 
Est meum iter ad prcelium cum Fingale. 
Non sunt mei canes ipsius juxta meum latuf, 
Nee mens gmdu» super ericl, valUum, 



283 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

Here are several obvious corruptions. Instead 
of thall we should read thai: instead of fraoch, 
heath, raon, a plain or heath — an Ossianic word. 
My principal inducement, however, to notice this 
tetrastich, is the occurrence of the name Fionnghal, 
which the Scots claim for themselves, whilst they 
acknowledge that Fionn is the hero's Irish name. 
But were Fionn Coptic or Chinese, this stanza 
demands it, to rhyme with gleanu. Fionnghal 
must have been substituted by some person, either 
strongly impelled by a patriotic motive, or else 
absolutely ignorant of the laws of the metre. With 
the proposed corrections, thai accords with Mar 
and rhymes with thaobh — Fionn rhymes with gleann, 
and thaobh accords with raon, as the reader may 
clearly perceive, by casting his eye over the classes 
of the Irish letters. Such examples may be abun- 
dantly multiplied, but I only beg leave to add one 
more, from the same poem, v. 96 : — * 

Ma thuiteas mi sa' mhagh, a Bhinnbheil, 
Togsa dileas gu h-ard m' uaigh, 
Clacha glas, as meall da 'n uir, 
'N an comhara do d' run, a Bhinnbheil. 

Here the form of the tetrastich cannot be imme- 
diately recognized ; but if we transpose the two 

* Translation :— 

Si cadam ego in acie, O Vinvela, 

Tolle tu amice, in altum, ineuni sepulehrum, 

Saxa glauca, et molem telluris, 

Ut signa tui amoris, Vinvela. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 284 

last lines, and instead of meall write meal, the 
rhymes and concords will be perfect. 

Many of the properties of these stanzas may have 
escaped my notice, as my knowledge of the language 
is imperfect. I have, however, ascertained one 
important fact — that the author of these poems 
certainly understood, and scrupulously attended to, 
the system of orthography now established in the 
Irish language, as well as the artificial arrangement 
to which the letters of that language have been sub- 
jected. By thus lightly meddling with the strains 
of the immortal Ossian, 1 may, perhaps, incur the 
momentary indignation of Galic scholars. But men 
of learning and candour will reflect as well as feel. 
I may, therefore, in time, look for an acknowledg- 
ment, that, in these minute remarks, I have produced 
stronger proof than any which has hitherto been 
offered to the public, that many of these identical 
stanzas, had passed through more hands than one, 
before they were delivered to the editors of the 
present work. For Macpherson does not appear 
to have studied the prosody of Erin ; and I must 
again repeat it, as the fact is strong and decisive, 
the preceding examples, to which several hundreds, 
equally conclusive, might be added, have proved, 
that the author of these verses was intimately 
acquainted with the singular and arbitrary classifi- 
cation of letters, laid down by the Irish grammarians 
of the seventeenth century, and originally devised 
by the Irish Bards of the fourteenth and fifteenth. 



285 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

This evidence of his peculiar learning, may detract 
something from the supposed Ossians claim to 
remote antiquity; but it does him credit in another 
way ; it fully demonstrates, that he was no illiterate 
barbarian. 

As it is by no means clear, that all these poems, 
or all the parts of any one of them, are the work of 
the same man, there may be many of the tetrastichs, 
in which the principles of Irish prosody were not 
accurately observed, by the original composer : but 
those passages in which we may trace the same 
tetrastich form, and a certain degree of attention 
to these rules, make up, at least, two thirds of the 
body of the collection, and are to be found in every 
one of the poems. Amongst these are interspersed, 
at irregular intervals, one, two, or three, rhyming 
couplets, such as we find in the Galic translation of 
Popes Messiah: at other times, we may remark 
from one to ten or a dozen arbitrary lines, which, I 
believe, defy all the known laws of prosody, and can 
be regarded as nothing more than a kind of measured 
prose, like Macpherson's English Ossian. I offer an 
example of rhyming couplets, from Cath-Loda, 
Duan i. v. 11.* 

Mi coimhead air Lochlin nan sonn, 
Ciar uisge Uthorno nan tonn ; 



* V. i. p. 3. Translation :■— 

Me intuente Lochlinem bellatorum, 
Fuscam aquam Uthornae, undarum ; 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN* 286 

O'n iai -cliuain a tearnadh mo righ ; 
*S muir bheucach fo ghaoith a* stri ; 

*S neo-lionar glan oigridh nam beann 
Tir chbigrich a* togaii fo *n ceann. 

It may be conjectured that such couplets as these, 
together with the lawless lines which, in almost every 
page, intrude upon our notice, contain the matter 
which Macpherson borrowed from the tales, or prose 
romances, in order to connect his poetic fragments, 
and mould them into regular compositions. 

As to the assistance which the memory may have 
derived from the structure of Ossian's verse, it may 
have been considerable, in the rhyming tetrastichs* 
Those which are wholly formed upon the Irish classes, 
could have presented but few facilities, excepting 
to persons who had accurately studied the fanciful 
system, upon which they are constructed. And the 
abrupt intrusion of couplets and arbitrary lines, at 
irregular intervals, and in uncertain numbers, must 
have had a direct tendency to confound the strongest 
memory. But I am greatlyjdeceived, if the memory 
was long exercised by any of these stanzas, in the 
form which they now exhibit. I have shewn above, 
that these poems, generally speaking, are composed 
according to certain rules of Irish prosody: I 
would therefore recommend it to the grammarians 

Ab occidentali oceano descendentem meum regem ; 
Et mare mugiens sub vento certans ; 

Est haud numerosa pura juventus montium 
Terram peregrinorum tollens sub ejus caput. 

N N 



287 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of Erin, to try whether many of those tetrastichs 
which are now defective, may not be restored to 
their integrity, by merely declining the nouns and 
verbs after the Irish manner, and rectifying the or- 
thography. Should this experiment succeed, it will 
furnish an absolute demonstration, that the poet not 
only imitated the Bards, but even employed the 
language of the Western Island. My knowledge 
of that language is not sufficient to enable me to 
pursue the enquiry : yet I can perceive a consider- 
able number of minute characteristics, which strongly 
excite a suspicion of the fact I have suggested. I 
submit the following examples. 
Carthon, v. 84 :— * 

<S dubh-dorcha do smaointe, ard laoich, 
A' d' aonar mu Lora nam fuaim : 
Cluinnear mu d' og-bhron nach faoin, 
Air a cheo a chuir d' aois fo ghruaim. 

Here laoich will not rhyme with faoin, because 
ch is rough, and n, light ; but an Irish scholar would 
have written this vocative case, laoigh, and then the 
rhyme would be perfect : for gh and n pertain to the 
same class. Again Lora will not accord with laoich, 
nor yet with laoigh ; but the Irish Bards write this 
name Laoghaire (see Miss Brooke's Magnus) and 
laoghy or air would accord with laoigh; gh and r 
being of the same class. 

* V. i. p. 153. Translation : — 
Sunt atro-fuscae tuae cogitationes, O ardue bellator, 
In tu& solitudine circa Loram sonituum : 
(Audiamus) audiatur de tuo juvenili-dolore baud vano, 
De vapore qui misit tuam senectutem sub tetricitatem. 






THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 288 

In the poem of Oinamorul, v 126, we have a 
stanza rendered equally defective, for want of 
varying the termination ch, after the Irish manner: 

Co as an triath, is e thuairt an oigh 
Tha coimhead air gorm-cheo a chuain ? 
Co th' anmach triath a chuil mhoir 
Dubh mar sgeith f hithich nan cruach ?* 

Fhithich in the fourth line, will not accord with 
mhoir in the third, nor will cruach rhyme with 
chuain in the second : but a raven, in Irish, \sjiach, 
in the genitive case Jiaigh, and cruach makes cruaigh 
in the genitive — these corrections restore the allite- 
ration. 

Fingal, b. i. v. 9 : — 

Eirich, a Chuchullin, eirich ! 
Rise, Cuchullin, rise ! 

Here eirich will not accord with threun in the 
next line, nor rhyme with feile in the third : but 
the true imperative is eirigh, of which we have an 
example in Llwyd's Dictionary ; and gh agrees with 
n and /. 

Upon the whole, then, it appears that this edition 
was prepared for the press, without due attention 
to the laws of the metre. I may add, that the 
tetrastich form is kept pretty much out of sight, by 
the punctuation and the manner in which the poems 



* V. i. p. 185. Translation: — 
Unde est princeps, est quod dixit virgo, 
Qui est aspiciens super ccerulam nebulam oceani ? 
Quis est nisi princeps csesariei magnae 
Nigrae instar alae corvi praecipitorum ? 



289 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

are printed. It follows, that the Galic scholars have 
hitherto made no great proficiency in the new study 
of their native language : and if they make these 
poems their standard, which they seem disposed 
to do, their progress must be effectually impeded. 
A language which, for many centuries, has been 
abandoned to the caprice of the vulgar, without 
grammar, without books, without a vocabulary, 
without orthography, is not to be restored to its 
ancient purity, without due attention to the sister 
dialects, which have been preserved and cultivated 
with greater care. 

An unnecessary multiplication of examples would 
be irksome to the English reader : let those which 
I have now given suffice to explain my meaning, 
and to ground an opinion, that the nearer we 
approach to laws of the Irish grammar — to its 
orthography — its etymology — its syntax — and its 
prosody, the better we shall be able to explain the 
principles of versification in certain parts of these 
poems. The ensuing section will disclose substan- 
tial reasons, why this observation should not be 
extended to every pari of them. 

From what has been here remarked, I would not 
infer that the poems were composed in Ireland, or 
by natives of that country. My remark only 
verifies the testimony of Dr. Shaw, that, even in 
the Highlands, the Irish was always the written, 
and the studied language. However this may have 
been, these poems are not the work of an illiterate 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 290 

Bard : nor could they possibly have been composed 
in any age, prior to the arrangement of that singular 
scheme of prosody — that fanciful classification of 
the letters, which is explained by the Irish gram- 
marians of the seventeenth century. 






SECTION VI 



SECOND ADDITIONAL. 



On the Galic text of the poems ascribed to Ossian. 



Galic scholars pronounce the original language of these poems to be in- 
imitable in modern times, and hence infer the antiquity and integrity of the 
text.— This argument set aside, by shewing — that the text was altered by 
Macpherson, previous to his translation— that it has also been altered sub- 
sequent to the publication of the English Ossian. — Macpherson detected in 
composing an original of Berrathon. — Recomposition of the Galic poems 
exemplified in Calthon and Colmal — Malvina's Dream — Address to Oscar — 
and the Story of Oscar's Death — the language of these poems, therefore, 
imitable and imitated, in the present age.— Galic scholars incompetent to 
judge of the antiquity of the language— proved by their quoting an acknow- 
ledged production of the eighteenth century as the genuine work of Ossian. 

The author having weighed these circumstances and facts — denies the 
antiquity and historical authenticity of ail these compositions — expects his 
literary doom from the Scotch critics — makes his humble confession — and 
retires — leaving the Caledonians in full possession of all the fame arising 
from the production of these poems, considered as works of modern invention. 



1 have reason to apprehend that the conclusion 
which I have drawn, from a view of Ossian's metre, 
will not prove agreeable to the defenders of the 
Caledonian Bard, who appear to assume as a fact, 
that the Galic text, as it is now published, not only 
came in a perfect state, into Mr. Macpherson's 
hands, but had existed in its full integrity, from a 
remote age. Let us hear the sentiments of Sir 
John Sinclair, upon this subject. 

" It is ingeniously observed, in the Report of the 
<e Highland Society, (p. 137), That the publication 
" of the original Galic will afford an opportunity, to 
16 those who question its authenticity, to examine 
ff narrowly the intrinsic evidence, arising from the 
" nature and construction of the language. This is 
a a point of the first importance in the dispute : for 
* l not an instance can be collected, of a fabrication 
" in a foreign language, or in a language supposed 
" to be that of an ancient period, where, upon 
" an accurate examination, internal proofs of the 
tc forgery have not been discovered, in the very 
" language alone, in which the forgery was at- 
" tempted to be conveyed." 



293 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

To this confident challenge, our author subjoins 
the following particulars : — " It is decidedly the 
" opinion of such Gaelic scholars as have hitherto 
" had an opportunity of examining the whole, or 
" any part of the original, that the language in 
" which Ossian's poems are written, is of great 
" antiquity, and could not be imitated in modern 
" times. They assert that it would be as difficult 
" for any modern scholar, to pass his compositions 
" in Greek and Latin, for those of Homer or Virgil, 
" as it would be for Macpherson to have composed 
" Gaelic poems, which could not, at once, be dis- 
" tinguished from those of so ancient a date.* It 
" is hardly possible, for those who are not con- 
" versant in the Gaelic language, to judge of the 
" validity of this argument; but the unanimous, or 
" even the general testimony, of respectable and 
" intelligent Gaelic scholars, to that fact, must 
M necessarily have great weight in such a con- 
" troversy. 

*' There is another mode, however, by which the 
" publication of the Gaelic will furnish the most 
i( satisfactory evidence of its own originality; 
u namely, by comparing it, or a new literal trans- 
" lation of it, with Macpherson's translation, in 
" order to ascertain the following particulars : — 



* Not quite so difficult : for we know what the Greek and Latin languages 
were, in the time of Homer and Virgil ; but we have no undoubted standard 
of the ancient Galic, to confront with a modern forgery. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 294 

" 1. Whether Macpherson did not, in many in- 
" stances, misconceive the meaning of the original, 
" and consequently, give an erroneous translation? 
" 2. Whether he did a ot frequently add many words 
" and expressions, not to be found in the original, 
" which additions have been adduced as plagiarisms 
" from other authors ; and consequently, as argu- 
" ments against the authenticity of the poems? 
" 3. Whether he did not leave out many beautiful 
" words and passages, to be found in the original? 
" 4. Whether he did not pass over many words and 
" phrases, which he found it difficult to translate? 
" and 5. Whether, on the whole, he did sufficient 
" justice to the nervous simplicity and genuine 
" beauties of the Celtic Bard? — All these circum- 
u stances will appear, beyond question, by a fair 
" comparison between Macpherson's and a new 
" translation." 

I have quoted this argumentative passage without 
abridgment, iu order to shew the opinion of these 
respectable critics — That the Galic copy now pre- 
sented to the public, is ancient and authentic — that 
it is the same which Macpherson had before him, 
when he translated the poems into English — and 
consequently, that every deviation of the English 
version, from the present Galic text, is to be im- 
puted to the infidelity or incapacity of the translator. 

It is upon these grounds that Sir John Sinclair 
proceeds against Mr. Macpherson, as if he had 

o o 



295 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

been translating the works of Homer, Virgil, or 
any other classical author, whose text was already 
fixed, publickly known, and undisputed. He, ac- 
cordingly, exhibits a new translation of the first 
book of Fingal, by the Rev. Mr. Moss. This is 
contrasted, line by line, with Macpherson's trans- 
lation : and the contrast is followed up by twenty 
close pages of learned notes, in which it is proved, 
that the former translator added some lines, omitted 
others, and made fanciful allusions to passages of 
Scripture, to Pope's Homer, Thomson's Seasons, &c. 
without authority from the venerable Ossian : also, 
that he misconceived the meaning of numerous 
passages, and always to the disadvantage of the 
original. In all this I cannot help thinking, that 
the worthy Baronet and his new translator have 
dealt rather hardly with poor Macpherson, for 
whom I must be allowed to retain some degree of 
respect and gratitude. To him, more than to any 
other individual, we are indebted for the Galic, as 
well as for the English Ossian. We learn from 
Macpherson's own notes, from Dr. Smith, and from 
the general stream of evidence, that the reputed 
works of this Bard were collected in a multitude of 
disjointed fragments, discordant amongst them- 
selves, and mixed with abundance of heterogeneous 
matter. Great must have been the labour and 
industry demanded of him, who undertook to ar- 
range, connect, digest, and prune such originals a& 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 296 

these.* It may be fairly supposed that Macpher- 
son, at the time when he executed the task of 
translating, has only brought his materials to a 
proper bearing amongst themselves. He may not, 
at that period, have taken a fair copy of them, or 
given them their last polish. He may not have 
intended to bestow any further labour upon them. 
But when his adversaries, and his friends, both 
which parties included all the literati of the British 
Islands, began to call aloud for his originals, he 
bethought himself of revising his Galic papers, and 
giving them that finish which might, in time, render 
them fit to meet the public eye. This was a tedious 
and embarrassing task. Its accomplishment was 
promised, and the promise was often repeated : 
but still, something remained to be done. At last, 
after a delay of six and forty years, and after the 
death of the collector, part of the originals make 
their appearance. And it must be acknowledged 
that, either Macpherson himself, or some of his 
coadjutors, had a tolerable knowledge of the lan- 
guage and the subject, ortherwise the respectable 
copy now exhibited could never have assumed its 
present form. If this reasoning be just, we need 
not charge Macpherson with ignorance, or want 
of taste, in order to account for the difference 



* That the Galic text does not stand at present as it came into Mr. Mac- 
pherson's hands, is evident upon the slightest inspection : for we here miss 
all those passages which this writer avowedly retrenched in his translation, 
as supposed interpolations of the modern Bards. 



297 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

between the English and the Galic text. The 
latter may be, at present, superior to the old trans- 
lation : but that superiority it owes to the translator's 
industry and zeal. 

Not to enter the lists of hypothetical argument 
with the Caledonian critics, 1 shall bring the ancient, 
authentic, and inimitable language of Ossian, to 
the test of a few plain facts which happen to fall 
within the compass of my own observation. 

That much remained to be done in completing 
the originals of this Bard, loug after the translation 
had been published, is a fact that just shews itself, 
jn the course of Sir John Sinclair's Dissertation. 
We are there informed that the late Mr. John 
Mackenzie was accustomed to keep a regular diary 
of any important occurrence, and on the 22d of 
July,* there is the following entry in that diary : — 
" Went at one o'clock to Putney Common, to Mr. 
" Macpherson ; he said he had been searching in 
IC an old trunk up stairs, which he had with him in 
" East Florida, for the original of Eerrathon. That 
" he feared it was in an imperfect condition, and 
" that part of it was wanting, as of Carthon : that 
u he had only put together a few lines of it, and 
u those not to his own liking : that he had 
" tired of it, after a short sitting." 



* The date of the year is not added ; but as it was after Mr. Macpherson's 
return from East Florida, it must have been many years posterior to the 
publication of the English Ossian. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 298 

This perplexity of choice, this extraordinary 
fatigue of the animal spirits, must, surely, have 
implied something more than the mere labour of 
transcribing two or three hundred short lines, and 
making a few orthographical corrections. It is 
evident from the language of this paragraph, that 
something more is implied. Macpherson possessed 
part of the original, in an imperfect state, whilst 
another part was entirely wanting. He had, with 
great labour and fatigue, been putting together a 
few lines, and those not to his own liking — that is, 
he had been recomposing those imperfect passages 
which he possessed, or endeavouring to supply 
those which he had not. He had proceeded slowly 
and laboriously in this arduous task, and having at 
length, put together a few lines, he read them over 
with anxious care, and still found them unworthy 
ofOssian. Here then is an important fact: — the 
original Galic of this Bard remained to be com- 
posed or put together, several years after the 
translation had circulated through Europe: and 
Macpherson was forced to make toilsome and re- 
peated efforts, before he could compose, or put 
together a few lines of it, to his own liking. 

I might here point out several strong circum- 
stances to prove that the Galic text has certainly 
been altered subsequent to Macpherson's transla- 
tion, and that the editors of the present work 
ought to have been fully aware of this fact. I shall 
lay one of these circumstances before the reader. 



299 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

In the argument prefixed to Calthon and Colmal, 
Macpherson tells us— " The story of the poem is 
" handed down by tradition, thus: in the country 
" of the Britons, between the walls, two chiefs lived 
" in the days of Fingal, Dunthalmo Lord of Teutha, 
il supposed to he the Tweed; and Rathmor, who 
" dwelt at Clutha, well known to be the river Clyde." 
He adds in a note — u Alteutha, or rather Balteutha, 
" the town of Tweed — It is observable that all the 
" names in this poem are derived from the Galic 
iC language ; which is a proof that it was once the 
<c universal language of the whole Island." 

The edition now published, under the sanction of 
the Highland society, retains this note word for word, 
and thus translates the passage, quoted from the 
argument — " In terra. Britonum inter muros, tem- 
" pore Fingalis, duo erant principes ; quorum alter, 
u Dunthalmo — Teutha (sive Teudce ut creditur) 
Cl dominus erat ; alter Rathmor — ad Clutham (cui 
" nunc etiam nomen Cluda est) habitavit." 

Hence it appears that Macpherson grounded his 
topography of the dominions of these princes upon 
the knowledge, that Clutha meant the Clyde, and 
upon the probable conjecture, that Teutha was the 
Tweed: also that the editors of this work subscribed 
to his opinion — Teutha, supposed to be the Tweed — 
Teutha, sive Tueda, ut creditur. They also represent 
this poem, or traditional story, as of sufficient credit 
to establish an important historical fact. This ap- 
pears from the note which Macpherson published, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 300 

and our editors adopted. They ought, therefore, to 
have regarded the Galic text as authentic and un- 
corrupted. But when we look into the Galic origi- 
nal now published, we find nothing of Macpherson's 
Clutha : the name is Cluai, throughout the poem. 
Macpherson's Teutha and Alteiiiha indeed occur. 
But in addition to these, the river Tweed, is discri- 
minated by its plain modern name, Tuaide or Tuaid 9 
for it is written both ways: and this is repeated no 
less than seventeen times. This remarkable cir- 
cumstance must have been utterly unknown to 
Macpherson, at the time when he first translated the 
tale, and even, eleven years afterwards, when he 
revised his translation and notes. Macpherson was 
disposed to identify Teutha in the Tweed. Had the 
name Tuaid, therefore, occurred even once, in any 
copy known to the translator, he could not have 
been under the necessity of grounding his topogra- 
phy, upon the bare supposition that Teutha meant 
the Tweed. Consequently the present original of 
thai- ancient poem, which is of sufficient authority to 
ascertain the universal language of the whole Island, 
has undoubtedly been composed, or put together, 
since the year 1773. 

Surely these gentlemen who could confront such 
an original with Mr. Macpherson's argument, and 
notes, without a single word of apology, must trifle 
strangely, not only with the public, but with their 
own literary reputation. 



301 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

The Bard of Selma has been extremely cautious 
of exposing his person in an undress. Notwith- 
standing this excess of delicacy, we shall be able to 
catch a glimpse or two of him unawares, and contem- 
plate the figure he makes, unadorned with the new 
robe, provided by his Caledonian friends. 

In the year 1778, five years after the translation 
of Ossian had been finally revised, Dr. Shaw pub- 
lished his Analysis of the Galic language. In the 
157th page of this work, the Doctor, who was at that 
time a zealous partizan of Ossian, gives fifty-seven 
lines of the original, from the beginning of Croma, 
together with a literal translation which, in every 
material point, agrees with Macpherson's. This 
original must, therefore, have corresponded, in the 
main, with that which Macpherson had used. When 
the Galic Ossian came out, 1 was eager to compare 
these lines published by Dr. Shaw, with the same 
passage, in the original of Croma. Dr. Smith's 
Dissertation and notes had already given me some 
suspicions ; but I must acknowledge I was not a 
little surprised at the result of this experiment. 
It was not in favour of the antiquity, authenticity, 
and inimitahility of Ossian's language. I shall 
take the liberty to confront these originals, in op- 
posite pages, in the appendix.* For this I need 
net apologize to the judicious reader, who must be 
convinced, that one solid fact, such as is involved 

* No. ii. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 302 

in this compendious view, is worth a whole volume 

of circumstantial reasoning. He has here, before 

his eyes, two copies of one identical passage, in those 

poems which are ascribed to Ossian, and each of 

those copies from respectable authority. However 

uncouth the lines may appear to him, my insertion 

of them cannot help gratifying his curiosity, and 

more than this, flattering his pride, by making him 

a competent judge of the decisive historical fact 

which they disclose, and the clear light which they 

reflect upon a literary question, which, for the last 

five and forty years, has engaged the attention, and 

divided the opinion of the learned world. Will he 

not, after a deliberate comparison of these originals, 

resolve with me, that two persons, one residing in 

London, and the other at York, might take up an 

Eclogue of Virgil, at the same instant, and render 

them into English verse, with less diversity of phrase, 

than what we remark between the Ossian of 1778, 

and the Ossian of 1807 ? I think he must: for the 

difference, in this case, is not like that which critics 

remark, in comparing different copies of an ancient 

author. Instead of two, three, or, at most, half a 

dozen various readings, we have here, in the space 

of fifty-seven, or fifty-eight, short lines, more than 

two hundred, without reckoning the variations of 

orthography. There is but one line which the two 

copies express in the same words: and the lines, in 

general, are so very different, in their phrase and 

structure, that the copies must be ranked as distinct 

p p 



303 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

versifications of one and the same passage, in a 
popular story. If one of these copies be ancient 
and genuine, the other must be modern and spurious : 
for it were folly to suppose, that they could have 
both descended together, from the remote age, to 
which they equally pretend. And if one be spurious, 
where are the distinguished credentials of the other ? 
Critics of Caledonia ! Here are two Ossians ! which 
of them is the modern impostor ; and which is the 
ancient, authentic, and inimitable Bard of Selma ? 
It will be said that oral reciters may commit great 
mistakes — they may transpose paragraphs of the 
same poem, or erroneously introduce incidents from 
other poems. For such corruptions due allowance 
would be made. But the fact which we now con- 
template is of a nature totally different from this. 
Here are not the marks of corruption but of re- 
composition : for the same thoughts, in both copies, 
follow one another in the very same order, only they 
are expressed throughout in different language. 
Here must, therefore, be manifest and wilful forgery, 
on one side, or on both ; as it is impossible to con- 
ceive that Ossian's first rude sketches, and his finished 
pieces survived alike, in the mouths of the people, 
through fifty successive generations. 

The collation of these originals reminds me of a 
passage in Dr. Smith's letter to Henry Mackenzie, 
Esq. dated 21st. June, 1802, and cited by Dr. 
M'Arthur, Galic Ossian, v. iii. p. 339. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 304 

" That, at least, the stamina, the bones, sinews, 
u and strength, of a great part of the poems ascri- 
" bed to him (Ossian) are ancient, may, 1 think, be 
" maintained on many good grounds. But that 
" some things modem may have been superinduced, 
Si will, if not allowed, be at least, believed, on grounds 
" of much probability ; and to separate the one from 
" the other is more than the translator himself, were 
" he alive, could now do, if he had not begun to do 
" so from the beginning." We have ocular demon- 
stration, that the language and verse of these poems 
do not come under the description of stamina, 
bones, &c. What then remains to the Bard ? Only 
the general subject matter — the mere tales. But if 
the unanimous opinion of Galic scholars, relative to 
these tales, is to be received, these bones of Ossian 
are scarcely more ancient than his tenderest muscles, 
or even the paring of his nails. 

The writer of the letter cited above, was more in 
the secret of Ossian, than any other individual, 
excepting Macpherson himself, to whom we now 
revert. If this gentleman had not furnished the 
copy for the Analysis, he must, at least, have been 
well acquainted with it: for that work appeared 
more than twenty years before his death. Some 
time before his death he must also have possessed 
the copy published in 1807: for he transcribed it 
into the poem of Croma, which he was preparing 
for the press. So that, having his choice of these 
two originals, he manifestly preferred the latter. 



305 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

But in his translation of 1762, and in his revisal of 
that translation in 1773, he followed the copy which 
was afterwards published by Dr. Shaw, or a copy 
to that effect. He could not, therefore, at either of 
these periods, have had the preferable copy of 1807 
in his possession. Where was it then? It is not 
pretended that Macpherson collected any Galic 
originals, after the year 1762; and had the genuine 
copy fallen accidentally into his hands, between 
that time and 1773, he would surely have taken 
some notice of it in his revised edition of that year. 
This he has not done. He had not therefore ob- 
tained these inimitable lines of Ossian, from Scottish 
tradition, either by industry, or by accident. 

The conclusion from all this is plain and obvious ; 
namely, that, many years after the appearance of 
the English Ossian, either Macpherson himself, or 
some person acting in concert with him, was at the 
pains to recompose the poetical effusions of the 
Highlanders, and give them a national dress, which 
should be deemed worthy of their immortal Bard. 
Hence, beyond all doubt, arose that labour and 
fatigue of spirits, to which the translator alludes, 
when speaking of the original of Berrathon : — " He 
" had only put together a few lines of it, and those 
" not to his own liking ; he had tired of it after a 
" short sitting" I am heartily sorry his animal 
vigour was not more equal to the task : for, in con- 
sequence of its failure, this fine ancient poem still 
wants an original. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 306 

From the nature of the improvements which 
Macpherson made in the copy of Croma, it may be 
further collected, that, when he seriously turned 
his thoughts to the production of an original Ossian, 
he disregarded the credit of having been accurate 
and precise, in his own translation. This " he 
resigned for ever to its fate." To his new and 
arduous enterprize, he bent the whole force of his 
matured genius, and, like a staunch patriot, resolved 
that no private consideration should interfere with 
the honour of the Caledonian Bard. 

Lest I should be thought to have laid too great 
stress upon this single proof, however decisive it 
may appear, I shall endeavour to provide it with 
one or two collateral supporters. In the mean 
time, I request the reader to compare Macpherson's 
English of the old copy — at least, thirty years old — 
with the Latin version of the new, which I have sub- 
joined in the appendix, to their respective originals, 
in order to evince the fact, that the recomposition 
of the Galic lines is sufficient to account for most 
of the defects imputed to the first translator. The 
particular phrases in which the Latin version varies 
from the other are warranted by the Galic copy 
of 1807, which affords abundant proof, that this 
was not the copy from which the English transla- 
tion was made. 

Let us now prove the integrity of the original 
Ossian, by the evidence of a gentleman who, next 



307 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

to Macpherson himself, was best qualified to deliver 
an opinion upon this subject. 

Dr. Smith's Galic Antiquities were published in 
the year 1780. In p. 300 of that work, the author 
points out a passage in the poem of Cuthon, — 
c< Alluding to the death of Oscar, and the grief of 
C6 Bran (his dog) on that occasion ; a scene, continues 
" the Doctor, so affecting, that few passages of 
" Ossian are oftener repeated than that which de- 
" scribes it in these beautifully lender lines, which 
" I may be pardoned for giving in the original, as 
" the translation is already so well known." 
Here follow two Galic passages of eight lines each, 
from " Temora, b. 1." And again, p. 316, of the 
same volume, our author thus refers to the above 
quotation : — " In the passage cited in the note, 
" p. 300, concerning the death of Oscar, there are, in 
" almost all the editions I have met with of that piece, 
" two lines (there marked in Italics) which intimate 
" that their women were then present." Hence it 
appears that these very passages were amongst the 
best known in the poems ascribed to Ossian — that 
they were supposed to have been the identical 
originals, from which Macpherson's translation of 
this part of Temora was produced ; and that Dr^ 
Smith, regarding them as genuine and authentic, 
quotes their authority for an ancient historical fact. 
Would it be imagined, after this, that not one of 
these sixteen celebrated and well-known lines is to 
be found in that copy of the original of Temora, 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 308 

which was prepared for the press, by Macpherson 
himself? Such, however, is the case. Some of the 
same thoughts, indeed, are selected, and cast into 
verse ; but the language and phraseology are totally 
different. The first passage runs thus, in Ossian 
of 1780:— 

Chruinnich iad uime na sluaigh, 
? S gachaon neach ri buirich thouagh, 
Cha chaoineadh athair a mhac fein, 
? S cha ghuileadh a bhrathair e. 
Cha chaoineadh piuthar a brathair, 
'S cha chaoineadh mathair a mac; 
Ach iad uile anns a phlosgail, 
A geur-chaoine' mo chaomh Oscair. 

Compare with these lines the correspondent pas- 
sage in OssiAN r of 1807 : — 

Cha robh bron air athair m'a mhac, 
Thuit an comhstri an tlachd oige, 
Ghluais iadsa gun deoir fo sgaile, 
'Nuair shinnte air lar ceann ant-sluaigh. 

Macpherson *s translation : — 

And they did weep, O Fingal ! Dear was the hero to their souls. He 
went out to the battle, and the foes vanished. He returned in peace amidst 
their joy. No father mourned his son slain in youth : no brother his brother 
of love. They fell without tears, for the chief of the people is low. 

Latin translation of 1807; — 

Hand fuit dolor patri circa suum filium, 

Qui ceciderat in conflictu, in decore suae juventutis. 

Abierunt illi sine lacrymis sub umbram, 

Cum extenderetur super humum caput populi. 

Macpherson's literal translation does not appear 
to come very close to either of these originals. He 
might have had a copy before him, materially dif- 
ferent from both of them; as it is not improbable 
that every reciting Bard furnished his own version 



309 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of select passages, of the traditional tales. How- 
ever that may have been, the original of 1807, 
widely differs from those celebrated strains of the 
Caledonian muse — those beautifully tender lines, 
which were oftenest repeated, .and consequently, 
best known, and recognized by Dr. Smith and his 
countrymen, as the genuine work of Ossian. Let 
us consider the second passage. 
Ossian of 1780:— 

Donnalaich nan con rem thaobh, 
Agus buirich nan sean laoch, 
Gul a phannail so co snitheach, 
Sud is mo a chraidh mo chroidhe. 
Cha d'f hidir duine roimhe riabh 
Gur croidhe feola bh' ann chliabh ; 
Ach croidhe do chuibhne cuir, 
Air a cho'dacha le stailin. 

Ossian of 1807 :— 

Osna nan triath arda fo h-aois, 

Caoine nan con, is am fonn 

A briseadh trom o bheul nam bard ; 

Leagh sud m'anam fein fo bhron 

M'anam nach do leaghadh riamh 

An comhstri nan sgiath no 'n comhrag ; 

Bha e cos'lach ri cruaidh mo lainn. 

Macpher son's translation : — 

The groans of aged chiefs : the howling of my dogs : the sudden bursts of 
the song of grief, have melted Oscar's soul. My soul, that never melted 
before. It \\ like the steel of my sword. 

Latin translation of 1807 : — 

Suspiria procerum excelsorum sub senectute, 
Ejulatus canum, et neniae 
Erumpentes graves ab ore bardorum ; 
Solverunt ilia ineum animum ipsius sub dolore, 
Meum animum qui haud solutus est unquam 
In conflictu clypeorum, nee in certamine ; 
Erat ille siniilis durae (chalybi) mei gladii. 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 310 

Whatever may be said as to Macpherson's fidelity, 
in translating either of these copies, one fact must 
be clear to the slightest inspection of the reader ; 
namely, that the verses which, in 1780, were accre- 
dited by Dr. Smith, as the genuine productions of 
Ossian, and the copy of the same identical passage, 
published in 1807, under the sanction of the High- 
land society, are not the same. They differ entirely 
from each other, in their structure and phraseology. 
How can we reason justly upon this fact, and at the 
same time, preserve due respect to those Galic 
scholars, who maintain the genuineness of Ossian's 
poems ? Had I asserted in 1804, when 1 drew up 
the former part of this Essay, that the verses pro- 
duced by Dr. Smith are modem and spurious, I 
should, undoubtedly, have incurred the general 
imputation of ignorance, prejudice, and the grossest 
illiberality, in questioning the veracity of a whole 
nation. Were T, at this moment, to deny the au- 
thenticity of the new copy, I should expose myself 
to the like censure. And yet, surely, 1 have a 
right to believe my own eyes, and to declare the 
conviction of my understanding, that these copies 
cannot possibly be deemed one and the same com- 
position ; consequently, one or both of uiem must 
be spurious. Why, then, should the dread of a few 
hard epithets, which have already been liberally 
bestowed upon my betters, restrain me from avowing 
my honest opinion, that, at the time when Macpher- 
son was preparing his Galic text, he did not believe 

Q Q 



311 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the language and the verse of Ossian to be either 
ancient or inimitable : that, therefore, whenever he 
found it convenient, he utterly disregarded the 
language and idiom, even of those fragments which 
were best known, and most generally recited in the 
country, and made the Bard of Selma utter the words 
which he chose to put into his mouth. Conse- 
quently, he must have judged rightly, in keeping 
back his originals, till the oral reciters had gone out 
of his way. If this opinion be not admitted, as a 
solution of the whole mystery, I know of but one 
other, which can pertinently be brought forward ; 
namely, what I have suggested already — that the 
utterly discordant copies, of the same passage, are 
to be regarded as versifications of the same incident, 
in a popular tale, made by several Bards, uncon- 
nected with each other. 1 am disposed to admit both 
these schemes, in their proper places : for the pre- 
sent Galic copy, has, evidently, much matter, which 
Macpherson had not before him, at the time when 
he translated ; therefore he has partly composed his 
originals since that time : and we learn from Dr. 
Smith, and from other abundant evidence, that, 
independent of Macpherson, there was great discre- 
pancy, as to language and verse, in the several oral 
recitals of the same paragraphs ; therefore several 
Bards must have exercised their talents in versifying 
the same incidents of the traditional tales. But how 
will the authenticity of Ossian stand affected by this 
view of the subject ? The tales are allowed to be 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 312 

the pure invention of the Bards within the last four 
or five hundred years. They are therefore modern, 
and unfounded in historical fact. But the poems 
are founded upon the tales. Does it therefore follow 
that they must be ancient and authentic? Again: 
it appears evident that the poems have been pro- 
duced by several unconnected composers; and are 
we hence to conclude that they are all the work 
of one and the same man, and that this man was 
Ossian! I cannot make it out. The facts upon 
which I reason are before the reader — let him make 
the best he can of them. 

I beg leave to refer to my appendix* for an ad- 
ditional proof of modern composition, in which we 
may dispense with the interposition of Dr. Shaw, 
Dr. Smith, or any third person whatsoever. Mac- 
pherson stands opposed to himself, and gives us a 
fair criterion of h\$ fidelity, in preserving the genuine 
text of Ossian. In his translation of the third book 
of Fingal, he had introduced the hero of that name, 
giving his grandson Oscar some military precepts, 
which he exemplifies and enforces, by the episode 
of Fainavolis. In preparing the text of the Galic 
Ossian, he preserved the substance of these pre- 
cepts, but judging the episode to be out of place, 
he wholly rejected it. Here we perceive that he 
was, at this time, more anxious to render the 
original Ossian perfect, than to preserve the credit 

* No. Hi. 



313 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

of his own translation. A copy of the episode, 
however, with the speech prefixed to it, was suf- 
fered to remain amongst his papers, and the editors 
of the Galic Ossian published it, in their third 
volume. We have thus two copies of the same 
identical passage, in the principal poem, ascribed 
to the Caledonian Homer. And it appears, upon 
examination, that the one is diffused through thirty- 
eight lines, expressed in the trivial style of an old 
ballad ; whilst the other is compressed into twenty 
lines, displaying all the dignity of the epic muse. 
If it be said that the latter consists of the most 
beautiful thoughts, selected out of the former ; still 
I must insist upon it, that the selection has been 
made by some modern, who not only abridged, 
but also composed, in the name of Ossian : for I 
remark a difference in the language and structure 
of every one of the lines. The mass of matter is 
indeed the same ; but it has undergone a repeated 
fusion, and been hammered out into a different 
form. This is not the work of the file, but of the 
forge. I am at a loss to conjecture how such 
examples as these are to be reconciled to the asser- 
tion of those Galic scholars, who contend, that 
the language of these poems is of great antiquity, 
and could not be imitated in modem times. 

To these assertions I have opposed plain facts. 
I have compared various copies of four distinct 
passages in these poems, amounting altogether, to 
about a hundred lines in each copy : and in that 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 314 

whole number, 1 find but one line expressed in the 
same words by any two copies, which chance has 
thrown in my way. A discrepancy like this could 
not have descended from the genuine labours of 
one ancient author, through the oral tradition of 
fifteen centuries. It follows, that certain copies, 
of all these passages, must be modern fabrications. 
And if modern genius was competent to perform 
so much, for the venerable Ossian, why are we to 
suppose that it has not performed the whole ? For 
my own part, I must freely confess that, instead of 
finding in these originals a convincing argument, 
that the genuine works of Ossian have come down 
through so many ages, by oral tradition ; I dis- 
cover undeniable proofs that Ossian, even when 
committed to writing in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, and entrusted to the hands of Mr. Mac- 
pherson, the best friend he ever had in the world, 
has not been able to preserve his own identity, for 
the short period of forty years — within that space, 
we perceive the chrysalis converted into a butterfly. 
But how this conversion was effected ; whether Mr. 
Macpherson fabricated one of these copies from 
the other, or produced them both, in succession, 
from a traditional tale of the Highland peasants, 
must now remain a secret, as we receive the whole 
through the medium of his handwriting. I only 
contend that there is fabrication in the case, and 
that the date of it cannot be remote. 



315 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

The facts which I have stated in these sections;, 
and a multitude of similar facts, which/ at present, 
I have not leisure to investigate, must, surely, have 
been known to those learned and ingenious writers, 
who have undertaken the defence of Ossian. But 
unfortunately, these gentlemen have not hitherto 
permitted themselves to doubt: they have not 
therefore weighed the evidence on both sides, or 
qualified themselves for the province of impartial 
critics. Had Ossian preferred his claims in a court 
of justice, his advocates, in the long robe, might 
do right, in studiously bringing forward, amplifying, 
and enforcing every shadow of evidence in his 
favour, dissembling and keeping in the dark every 
thing that would make against him, and pleading, 
not for the truth, but for the cause. But very dif- 
ferent from this is the candour of scholars, before 
the bar of the public. It should be their first 
care, to guard themselves against the illusions of 
prepossession. Of the strong influence of this 
affection, I shall select one remarkable instance. 

In the third volume of this edition of Ossian, 
published under the sanction of the Highland 
Society, a distinguished Galic scholar has under- 
taken to ascertain the topography of Fingal's 
Palace at Selma, or Taura, and with this view 
quotes the following paragraph, from The Fall of 
Taura, published by Dr. Smith, as a poem of the 
celebrated Caledonian Bard : — 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 316 

Thaineas o Arda le buaidh, 
Gu h uallach air steuda nan coigreach, 
*S ar gean mar ghathaibh na greine 
'S i luidhe siar air sleibhte Thaura. 
Chiteadh am fe na fairge 
Coillte le 'n carraigibh eighinn, 
'S clann ag amharc le ioghnadh 
Air smuidean Thaura f huidhe. 
Mar bhogh na fraois air sleibhte, 
Bha oighean aoibhin nar coail 
A' seinn caithream nan ceud clar, 
Le manran binn an orain. 

Which lines are thus translated: — 

" We came from Arda with victory, 

" Lofty on the steeds of the strangers, 

" And our joy was like the beams of the sun, 

" On the hills of Taura, when setting in the west. 

" There were seen in the calm face of the sea 

u Woods with their ivy-covered rocks, 

*' And children looking with wonder 

" At the smoke of Taura below. 

" Like the rainbow on the hills, 

" Our joyful virgins came forth to meet us, 

" Singing triumph with a hundred harps, 

" Accompanied by the sweet voice of the song." 

As Dr. Smith had candidly acknowledged that 
several paragraphs in the poems which he published, 
as Ossian's, were composed by himself from the 
recent tales, it is scarcely to be conceived that this 
gentleman should have quoted, and translated the 
passage before us, as an historical document, without 
having, first of all, just looked at the translation 
given by the original editor, in his Galic Antiquities, 
p. 315. And if this natural precaution was taken, 
it is scarcely possible but that the eye must have 
glanced upon the note, at the bottom of the page, 



317 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

to which we are directed by an asterisk. Here we 
are told in plain terms, that et The most of this 
" paragraph, with some others that follow, par- 
" ticularly before and after the song of the old 
<( Bard, have been supplied from the tales, as the 
" versification is broken and defective," 

Here, then, in the avowed composition of Dr. 
Smith, who wrote in the year 1780, we have 
Ossianic verse, and Ossianic language, extracted 
from the TJr-sgeuls, which the Doctor himself re- 
gards as u later tales," and ascribes to the pure 
invention of modern times. And this whole para- 
graph, not merely suspicious, but avowedly spurious, 
is adduced as the genuine work of Ossian, by a 
distinguished Galic scholar, and published under 
the sanction of the Highland Society, as an au- 
thentic document of ancient history, because the 
prepossession of these gentlemen will not allow 
them to doubt the credit of any thing which appears 
in their language, worthy of Ossian, and marked 
by his name. Let this instance remind them, that 
when they pronounce the language of Ossian to be 
of great antiquity, and such as could not be imi- 
tated in modern times, they may be mistaken. 

To the above passage, which introduces the 
virgins with their hundred harps and song of 
victory, Dr. Smith immediately annexes the song 
itself, which they chaunted upon the occasion. It 
is therefore highly probable, that this also is in- 
cluded in the paragraphs which he composed out 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 318 

of the later tales : at least, the sweeping clause in 
his note — some others that follow — gives it a most 
suspicious character. Our author, however, intro- 
duces thirty-two lines of this song, with the following 
preface: — " That the Romans were the enemies 
u whom the Fingalians completely defeated and 
" dispersed at Arda, appears evident, from part 
" of the same poem being the song of triumph, 
" which the maids of Morven sung, when they 
" came forth to congratulate their heroes on their 
" return." 

Thus a known composition of the latter part of the 
eighteenth century — a composition from materials 
confessedly modern and fabulous — is ostentatiously 
brought forward, as a document of sufficient credit 
and authority, singly, to establish an important fact 
in ancient history. So little care have these gentle- 
men taken to examine the grounds of the opinion 
which they publish to the world ; or else, so studious 
have they been to veil, even from their own reflec- 
tion, every circumstance that might tend to invalidate 
the claims of these poems, to remote antiquity and 
historical credit. 

Notwithstanding these operations of prepossession, 
I have succeeded in producing a series of direct 
proofs, that Macpherson, or his friends, did recom- 
pose several, even of those fragments of verse which 
the Highlanders recited, and did utterly transform, 
or new model, their language and structure, before 
they were transcribed for the press, as the original 

R R 



319 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

works of Ossian. And the conductors of this 
splendid edition have not enabled me to point out 
a single passage, which has not undergone the same 
operation. 

Had the partizans of the Celtic Bard allowed 
themselves to hesitate and reflect, they would have 
found all the facts which I -adduce, open to their 
own investigation. I cite only Galic authorities, 
and the friends of the Galic cause. My evidence 
results wholly from the cross examination of their 
own witnesses, of whose integrity and discretion 
they ought to have been well assured, before they 
produced them, at the bar of the public, with such 
undaunted confidence, such proud anticipation of 
victory, such prospective triumph. 

To the friends of Ossian it can be no secret that, 
when Macpherson persisted in promising, yet, for 
the space of forty years, persisted in withholding, 
his Galic copy, he was strongly suspected of being 
employed in composing his originals. It now ap- 
pears that, either by his own exertions, or through 
the medium of his friends, he did much in that 
way ; and let me ask our editors what proof have 
they given, that he did not do all? I would not be 
understood to insinuate, that he invented the stories 
of the several poems: these he found in the tradi- 
tional tales which he has pretty fully characterized, 
and in fragments of traditional verse, which, for the 
most part, he deemed unworthy of Ossian, as ap- 
pears from a detection of the care he took, to 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN, 320 

exhibit great part of his originals, in new language 
and new verse. 1 am restrained from the inference, 
that this is the case with the whole of these originals, 
not by the evidence nor the arguments of our editors, 
but by the remarks 1 have made, that several pas- 
sages exhibit greater attention, in the composer, 
to the rules of Irish prosody, than Macpherson and 
his friends seem to have paid. Here is a presump- 
tive proof, that certain parts of these very originals 
are as old as the seventeenth century ; but where 
shall we look for another proof? The Galic text 
of the poems here published amounts to nearly 
ten thousand lines. It is given entirely from copies 
in Macpherson's own handwriting, or copies which 
he caused to be written. We are told much of old 
manuscripts, and transcripts, taken at various times, 
from oral recitations. Can the friends of Ossian, 
as men of honour, produce twenty connected verses, 
from any attested copy, not less that sixty years 
old, that shall correspond, 1 do not say in ortho- 
graphy, but, in language and phraseology with 
any one passage in these ten thousand lines ? The 
anxiety which they have manifested to defend the 
credit of their Bard induces me to believe, that 
they would have done this, had it been in their 
power ; but they have not favoured us with a single 
line. Till this be done, and, considering the pre- 
sent complexion of the case, something more 
than this, I apprehend the public will henceforth 
acquiesce in the opinion, that not a paragraph in 



321 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

these poems can be relied upon, as the genuine 
production of Ossian, as an authentic document 
of history, as a real specimen of the Highland 
language, such as it was three hundred years ago, 
or, at any earlier period. 

It is now time to bring this discussion to a con- 
clusion. I hope that, in the course of my Essay, I 
have not dropped a single expression personally 
offensive to the writers whom I oppose, or nation- 
ally injurious to the brave Caledonians. Should 
the reader remark a sentence that can bear such a 
construction, I hereby publickly apologize for the 
inadvertency of which I may have been guilty, 
solemnly declaring, that I entertain the most cordial 
respect both for the individuals and the people. 
As the adversary of Ossian, I am aware that I may 
have incurred some displeasure. All who have 
taken the side of the question on which I happen 
to stand, from Johnson down to the writer of a 
paragraph in a magazine, have been arraigned and 
condemned of ignorance and prejudice, both of 
them capital crimes at the critical bar of Scotland, 
and crimes to which no mercy has hitherto been 
extended. I submit to my fate : but before I am 
led forth to literary execution, I beg leave to make 
a short and candid confession. 

About five and thirty years ago, I was, like 
many other young men, forcibly struck with the 
beauties and novelty of Macpherson's publication. 
Whitaker's Manchester strengthened my predilec- 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 322 

tion in favour of the Galic Bard, and gave me a 
high notion of the historical credit that was due to 
him. When Dr. Smith's Galic Antiquities ap- 
peared, I procured the book with eagerness, and 
was transported with the promise of his Sean Dana, 
or Originals, of the poems he had published in 
English. Ossian was now my favourite companion. 
I had versified several books of the Temora ; with 
the help of Llwyd I began to translate Smith's 
Galic specimens, and formed a resolution to learn 
the language, that I might be ready to receive the 
venerable Bard, when his name should be an- 
nounced to the public. However ignorant I may 
have been at this period, I trust the Ossianists will 
readily acquit me of the charge of prejudice against 
their favourite cause. 

But a close examination of Dr. Smith's Disserta- 
tions and Notes, began to set the subject in a new 
point of light. These were compared with Mac- 
pherson's Preface, Dissertations, Arguments, and 
Notes, with an occasional glance at the poems 
themselves ; and 1 seemed, gradually, to perceive, 
that I had been too incautious an admirer of Ossian. 
If it be prejudice to give up a favourite notion, 
reluctantly, and inch by inch, as it was extorted 
from me, by the strong hand of conviction — hence 
arose my prejudice. 

Ossian was now laid aside, till the year 1804, 
when a design I had formed, of examining some 
remains of our old Welsh Bards, reminded me of 



323 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

the renowned prince of Selma. I began to re- 
consider my sentiments upon this subject, and the 
observations I then made were thrown together 
into a short Essay, which, from that time to the 
present, has either been in the hands of a few 
select friends, or reposed very innocently in my 
desk. As the last means of conquering my igno- 
rance and prejudice, 1 procured a copy of the Galic 
originals, which were published in 1807 : the result 
is now before the reader. 

I trust even Ossian himself could not lay to my 
charge, that I am an ungenerous foe. In forming 
and declaring my opinion, I have not dwelt upon 
the objections of his avowed adversaries. Taking 
up the arguments of his friends, with a strong 
original bias in their favour, I found, upon calm 
examination, that many of them were highly absurd, 
and all of them fallacious and inconclusive. I 
also considered the internal evidence of the Galic 
poems, and these discover evident marks of recent 
composition. They exhibit the principles of a 
prosody which cannot be deemed ancient; and, in 
every instance where I have had an opportunity of 
comparing the present text with other copies, it 
appears that they have been so much altered, since 
the middle of the eighteenth century, as scarcely 
to have retained their identity for the last fifty 
years. For these reasons, and others which have 
been stated, I feel myself impressed with the con- 
viction, that not a single page of the work before 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 324 

us, has existed three hundred years, in its present 
language and form. Certain rude tales, indeed, 
relative to Fionn Mac Coul and his connections, 
may have been known in the country, something 
earlier. But Fionn himself has undergone great 
changes. In the high day of romance, he was a 
gigantic demon, that troubled all the air with his 
frowns; and made the world schog when he danced. 
In more recent times, he humanized his manners, 
contracted his stature, lengthened his name, and 
was transformed into a princely hero, one of the 
most amiable and noble that has ever been de- 
lineated by the epic muse. If I am wrong in this 
opinion, I must transfer the blame, not to the 
avowed adversaries of Ossian, but to Mr. Mac- 
pherson, Dr. Biair, Dr. Smith, Sir John Sinclair, 
and the Galic Bard himself. 

Upon the whole, I think Macpherson was un- 
fortunate, in making his first stand upon untenable 
ground, the precarious defence of which has embar- 
rassed both himself and his ingenious countrymen, 
for nearly fifty years. He taught the public to 
expect the genuine works of Ossian, a Caledonian 
JBard of the third century . Hence arose the mis- 
chief. It would have been well if, instead of this, 
he had stated something to the following effect : — 
That the order of Bards which remained in Scotland, 
down to the eighteenth century, left behind them 
many heroic tales, relative to Fionn and his con- 
nections — that various parts of these tales had been 



325 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

versified, in the name of Ossian, the son of Fionn— 
that, from the Bards, several of the people had 
learned these tales and fragments of verse, which 
they still repeated, as the works of Ossian — that 
many of these fragments were composed in a 
superior style, and in good taste ; and that, by a 
due arrangement and connection, which the tales 
themselves would suggest, the same fragments of 
verse, carefully selected, and occasionally improved 
in their language, might be modelled into poems, 
which, even in the present day, would be entitled 
to considerable respect. 

This, I believe, is very near the truth ; and if it 
had been simply told at first, it would have pre- 
vented all the serious debates, which have occurred 
upon the subject of Ossian's poems. To the proof 
of this statement, the Galic scholars would have 
been fully competent. They have proved it in 
every point ; but, with all their efforts, their inge- 
nuity, and their zeal, they have not been able to 
make good their ground, a single step beyond this. 

And what would the brave Caledonians lose by 
the candid avowal, were it now to be made? It 
might compel them to abate something of their 
new pretensions to early refinement, and to the 
possession of an ancient, uncorrupted language : 
on the other hand, it would remove their temptation 
to violate all history of their own country, and of 
the Celtic nations in general. The merit of these 
interesting compositions, would still be their own : 



THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 326 

for the slender aid which their Bards have derived 
from Ireland, coidd hardly be deemed a drawback 
upon their fame. What critic detracts an atom 
from the fame of Virgil, because Homer composed 
in hexameter verse, and sung the tale of Troy, some 
ages before the Roman Poet was born? Instead 
of vaunting of one solitary poetic genius, whose 
very existence is not recognized by history, the 
proud Caledonian nation might justly boast of 
many : instead of recording, that the harp had 
sounded amongst their mountains in an age with 
which we have very little to do at present, they 
might declare to the world, that the muse still loves 
to haunt their romantic glens, the banks of their 
wizard streams, and the recesses of their echoing 
rocks. Would the reputation of living genius do 
less credit to their country, than the bare recol- 
lection of a Bard, of whom^. according to their 
computation, it could only be said, in the last 
fifteen centuries — Ossian has been! 

But, at whatsoever period, and by whomsoever 
these poems were composed, I am by no means 
disposed to detract from their intrinsic merit. 
They do credit to Caledonia. The Galic originals 
constitute a splendid monument of its language. 
The Fingal and Temora, upon subjects so inter- 
woven with the feelings of the people, set this 
corner of the island far above poetic competition, 
not only with any Celtic tribe, but, we may almost 
say, with any nation in Europe. 

s s 



327 THE CLAIMS OF OSSIAN. 

What people, now existing, can boast of epic 
poems, so interesting, so original, so replete with 
generous sentiment, and, at the same time, so 
nationally appropriate? The man who believes 
himself descended from Fingal, from either of his 
heroes, or even from the nation which produced 
such characters, must be a degenerate wretch 
indeed, if he can do otherwise than think nobly, 
and act honourably. 



AB>IPIBSTIBaS< 



>I©1@H 



No. I. 



Some passages of an old Irish poem (published in the Transactions 
of the Royal Irish Academy for the year 1788), converted into 
Welsh, by a mere change of the orthography. 

Welsh :— 

Suile sior shluaghach 
Dealbha dea ghmomhach 
Feardha fior bhuadhach 
Maiseac mor f huighleach 
Goll borb beimionnach 
Curadh cruadh reannach 
Dogbhuibh eireannach 
Colg loin luath bhuilleach 
Flaith na bf hoghl creach 
Cliath na Cconnasach 
En f hear iomarcach 
Tren f hear trom f holtach 
Sgiath na sgeimhioltach. 



11. APPENDIX. 

The same, in Welsh orthography ;— 

Gwylydd hir-luawg 
Delwydd da gniviawg 
Gwrdde gwir-vuddiawg 
Moesawg mawr chwedlawg 
Coll bur bu-mynawg 
Gwr-aidd gwrdd rannawg. 
Dyg-vudd Werddonawg 
Col loin lwth-bwyllawg. 
Lliiydd llith-breiddiawg 
Clwyd y Connasawg 
Yn wr hyvarchawg 
Trinwr trwmwalltawg 
Ysgwydd ysgyvliawg. 

The following extract, from the beginning of the poem, contains 
the longest interruption in the rhyme; but as this also is in old 
Irish, it becomes Welsh, by a mere change of the orthography :— 

Goll mear mileata 
Ceap na crodhachta 
Laimh f hial arrachta 
Mian na mordhasa 
Mm* leim lanteiune 
Fraoch nach bhfuarthear 
Laoch go Ian ndealbhnaigh 
Reim an richuraibh 
Leomhan luatharmach 
A leonadh biodhbhaidh 
Ton ag tream tuarguin 
Goll na ngnath iorguil 
Nar thraoch a threin tachar 
Agh gan fuarachuaigh 
Mhal aig meadachuaigh 
Laoch ghacha lamhach 
Leomhan lonn ghniomhach 
Beodha binn dhuanach 
Creasach comhdhalach 
Euchteach iolbhuadhach. 



APPENDIX. 111. 



The same, in Welsh orthography :-— 

Coll, mur mileddau 
Cyf y creuddogau 
Llaw hael arachau 
Myn y mordasau 
Mur-llam llawntandde 
Grugiawg vuarthawr 
Lluch llawn dyvinaidd 
Rhwyv y rhiwraidd 
Llew-vin llwth arvawg 
A ellynoedd buddvaidd 
Ton a thrln terwyn 
Coll, y gnawd orchwyl 
Nid trech yn trin tachar 
Ag anhwyredig 
Maelawg mwyedig 
Lluch a gwychlawiawg 
Llew-vin llawngniviawg 
Byvviawg, bendannawg 
Cresawg, cyvdalavrg 
Eigiawg hollvuddiawg. 



IT. APPENDIX. 

No. IL 

Two copies of Malvzna's Dream, in the beginning of Croma y 
compared line by line. 
Ossian of 1778, published in Shaw's Analysis, p. 157 : — 

? S e guth anaim mo ruin a tha 'nn, 
O ! 's ainmach gu aislin Mhalmin* thu, 
Fosgluibh-se talla nan speur, 
Aithra Oscair nan cruaidh-bheum ; (1. Thoscair} 
Fosgluibh-se doirsa nan nial, 
Tha ceumma Mhalmhine go dian. 
Chualani guth a' m* aislin fein, 
Tha sathrum nio chleibh go ard. 
C'uime thanic an ossag a* m' dheigh 
O dhubh-shiubhal na linne od thall ? 
Bha do sgiath f huimmach ann gallan an aonaich, 
Shiubhall aislin Mhalmhine go dian, 
Ach chunic is a run ag aomadh 
'S a cheo-earradh ag aomadh m' a chliabh ; 
Bha dearsa na greine air thaobh ris, 
Co boisgal ri or nan diamh. 
*S e guth anaim mo ruin a tha 'nn, 
O ! 's ainmach gu m' aislin fein thu. 
'S comhnuidh dhuit anam Mhalmhine, 
Mhic Ossain is treine lamh. 
Dh' eirich m' osna marri dearsa o near, 
• Thaom mo dheoir measg shioladh na hoiche. 
Bu ghallan Aluin a' tfhianuis mi Oscair, 
Le m' uile gheuga uaine ma m' thimchiol ? 
Ach thanic do bhas-sa mar ossaig 
O 'n f hasach, us dhaom mi sios. 
Thanic earrach le sioladh nan speur, 
Cho d' eirich duill' uaine dhamh fein ; 
Chunic oigha me samhach 's an talla, 
Agus bhuail iad clairsach nan fonn. 
Bha deoir ag taomadh le gruaidhan Mhalmhine ; 
Chunic oigh 's mo thuiradh gu trom. 
C uime am bheil thu co tuirsach a' m' f hanuis 
Chaomh Ainnir-og Luath-ath nan sruth. 
An ro e sgiamhach mar dhearsa na greine ? 
Am bu cho tlachdor a shiubhal 's a chruth ? 




APPENDIX. 



Ossian of 1807, published by the Highland Society, v. i. p. 211, 
From Macpherson's papers : — 

'S e guth ciuin mo ruin a f* ann ! 

Neo-mhinic gann gu m' aisling fein thu, 

Fosglaibh sibhs' bhur talla thall, 

Shinns're Thoscair nan aid speur ; 

Fosglaibh sibhse dorsa nan neul, 

Tha Malmhina gu dian fo dheur. 

Chualam guth measg m' aisling fein ; 

Tha forum mo chleibhe gu h-ard. 

C uim' a thainig an osag' na dheigh, 

O dhubh-shiubhal na linne thall ? 

Do sgiath f huaimear an gallana 'n aoinaich 

Threig aisling Malmhina air sliabh. 

Chunnaic is' a run ag aomadh 

Ceo-earradh a' taomadh mu 'n triath. 

Dearrsa na greine mar thaobh ris 

'S e boilsgeadh mar or nan daimh. 

'S e guth ciuin mo ruin a t' ann ; 

Neo-mhinic gann do m' aisling fein thu. 

'8 e do chomhnuidhse m' anam f hein, 

A siol Oisein, a 's treine lamb. ; 

Eiridh m' osna am maduinn gan f heum, 

Mo dheoir mar shileadh speura ard 

A tuiteam mall o ghruaidh na h-oiche. 

Bu chrann aillidh mi, threin nan seod, 

Oscair chorr, le geugaibh cubhaidh, 

'Nuair thainig bas, mar ghaoth nan torr ; 

Fo sgeith thuit mo cheann fo smur. 

Thainig earrach caoin fo bhraon ; 

Cha d' eirich duilleag fhaoin dhomh fein. 

Chunnaic oigh mi 7 's mi fo shamh chair thall ; 

Bhuail clarsaiche mall nan teud. 

Chunnaic oigh mi, 's mi cumhadh fo ghradh, 

C* uime cho truagh tha lamh-gheul nam beus? 

Cheud ainnir o Lotha nan sian, 

An robh Oscar gu trian do luaidh 

Anns a mhacluinn mar dhearrsa o ghrein, 



VI. APPENDIX. 

Ossian of 1778 :— 

*S taitnach tfhonn an cluais Ossain, 

Nighain Luath-ath nan sruth dian. 

Thainic guth nam bard nach beo, 

Am measg t aislin air aomadh nan sliabh, 

Nuair thuit codal air do shuilan soirbh, 

Aig cuan mor-sliruth nan ioma fuaim, 

Nuair phil thu flathal o'nt seilg, 

'S grian la thu ag sgaolta na bein. 

Chual thu guth nam bard nach beo : 

'S glan faital do cliiuil fein. 

? S caoin faital nam fonn, o Mhalmhine ! 

Ach claonidh iad anam gu dcoir ; 

Tha solas ann Tuiradh le sioth, 

Nuair dh' aomas cliabh tuirse gu bron : 

Ach claoidhih fad thuirse siol dorthuin, 

Fhlath nighain Oscair nan cruaidh-bheum. 

'S ainmach an la gan nial 

Thuitas iad, mar chuisag, fo 'n ghrian, 

Nuair sheallas i sios 'n a soilse, 

Andeigh do 'n dubh cheathach siubhal do *n bheinn 

'S a throm-chean fo shioladh na h oiche. 

Mr. Macpher son's translation : — 

It was the voice of my love! 

Seldom art thou in the dreams of Malvina £ 

Open your airy halls, 

fathers of Toscar of shields ! 
Unfold the gates of your clouds : 
The steps of Malvina are near. 

1 have heard a voice in my dream. 
I feel the fluttering of my soul. 
Why didst thou come, O blast ! 

From the dark-rolling face of the lake ? 

Thy rustling wing was in the tree ; 

The dream of Malvina fled. 

But she beheld her love, 

When his robe of mist flew on the wind. 

A sun-beam was on his skirts : 

They glittered like the gold of the stranger. 



APPENDIX. VII. 



Ossian of 1807: — 



Lan aille do mhiann fo chruaidh? 

Caoin am fonn na mo chluais fein, 

A nighean Lotha nan sruth fiar, 

An cual' thn guth nach 'eil beo sa'bheinn, 

An aisling, ann do chadal ciar, 

'Nuair thuit clos air do shuilibh mall, 

Air bruachan Morshruth nan toirm beura? 

'Nuair thearnadh leat o sheilg nan earn, 

An latha ciuin aid ghrian sna speura ? 

Chuala tu barda nam fonn. 

'S taitneach, acb troni do gbuth, 

'S taitneach, a Mbalmbina, nan sonn : 

Leagbaidh bron am bochd anam, tha dubh. 

Tha aoibhneas ann am bron le sith, 

'Nuair shuidhicbeas aid stri a bhroin ; 

Caithidh cumha na tursaich gun bhrigh, 

Gann an lai an tir nan seod, 

A nighean Thoscair, a 's aillidh' snuagh. 

Tuitidh iad mar dhithein sios 

Air an caoimhid gtian neartor na soillse, 

'Nuair luidheas an dealt air a' chliabh, 

'S a throm cheann fo shian na h-oidhche. 

Translation of 1807 .— 

Est vox lenis mei amantis qure adest ! 

Infrequens rara ad meum ipsius somnium tu venis. 

Aperite vos vestrum domicilUnn ultra (nubes) 

Proavi Toscaris ardnarum sphseraium ; 

Aperite vos portas nubiiim. 

Est Malvina vehementer sub lacrymis. 

Audivi ego vocem inter mea ipsius insomnia ; 

Est strepitus mei pectoris altisona. 

Quare venit flamen post earn (scilicet vocem) 

Ab atro cursu gurgitis adversi? 

Ad ejus alam sonorem in arbore jugi 

Reliquit somnium Malvinam in clivo. 

Vidit ilia amantem se declinantem, 

Vaporosa veste efTusa circa prlncipem, 

Radiatione solis, instar lateris ei, 

Conuscante ut auruin advenarum. 



T T 



Vlll. APPENDIX, 



It was the voice of my love ! 

Seldom comes he to my dreams ! 

But thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, 

Son of the mighty Ossian ! 

My sighs arise with the beam of the east ; 

My tears descend with the drops of night. 

I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, 

With all my branches around me ; 

But thy death came, like a blast from the desart, 

And laid my green head low. 

The spring returned with its showers ; 

No leaf of mine arose. 

The virgins saw me silent in the hall ; 

They touched the harp of joy. 

The tear was on the cheek of Malvina : 

The virgins beheld me in my grief. 

Why art thou sad, they said, 

Thou fairest of the maids of Lutha ! 

Was he lovely as the beam of the morning, 

And stately in thy sight ? 

Pleasant is thy song to Ossian's ear, 
. Daughter of streamy Lutha ! 
Thou hast heard the music of departed bards, 

In the dream of thy rest, 

When sleep fell on thine eyes, 

At the murmur of Moruth. 

When thou didst return from the chase, 

In the day of the sun, 

Thou hast heard the music of bards, 

And thy song is lovely ! 

It is lovely, O Malvina ; 

But it melts the soul. 

There is a joy in grief, 

When peace dwells in the breast of the sad : 

But sorrow wastes the mournful, 

O daughter of Toscar, 

And their days are few. 

They fall away like the flower 

On which the sun has looked in his strength, 

After the mildew has past over it, 

When its head is heavy with the drops of night. 



APPENDIX. IX, 

Est vox lenis mei amantis quae adest ! 

Infrequens rara ad meum ipsius somnium tu venis. 

Est tuum domicilium animus meus, 

O semen Ossiani, cujus strenuissima manus ; 

Surgunt mea suspiria in matutino tempore (inutiliter) sine usu, 

Et meae lacrym8e instar guttarum cccli ardui 

Cadentium lente e gena noctis. % 

Fui arbor pulchra ego, strenuissime heroum, 

Oscar eximie, cum meis ramis fragrantibus, 

Quando venit mors, sicut ventus tumulorum ; 

Sub ejus ala cecidit meum caeruleum caput sub pulverem. 

Venit ver blandum sub imbre ; 

Non ortum est folium tenerum mihi ipsi. 

Conspexerunt virgines me sub silentio ex adverso ; 

Percusserunt citharas lentas chordarum. 

Conspexerunt virgines me lugentem sub amore. 

Quare tarn tristis est manus Candida leporum (charitatum)? 

Prima virgo Lothae (nimbosae) nimborum, 

An fuit Oscar perpetuo tuae laudis (thema) 

In matutino tempore sicut radiatio solis, 

Plenus pulchritudinis, tuae deliciae, sub dur& armatura ? 

Blandum est tuum carmen meae ipsius auri, 

Nympha Lothae torrentium flexuosorum, 

An audivisti tu vocem, quae non est viva in monte, 

In somnio, in tuo sopore obscuro, 

Quando cecidit quies super oculos lentos 

In praecipitiis Moruthi murmurarum placidarum : 

Quando descendebatur a te a venatu molium-saxearum, 

In die tranquillo ardui solis ccelorum? » 

Audivisti tu bardos (canoros) modorum. 

Est jucunda, at est (mcesta) gravis, tua vox, 

Jucunda est, Malvina, filia heroum, 

(Solvit) Liquefacit luctus miseram animam, quae est (tristis) atra. 

Est gaudium in luctu cum pace, 

Quando subsidit arduum certamen (luctuosum) luctus ; 

Consumit dolor lugubres sine fructu (inutiliter) ; 

Angusti sunt eorum dies in terra, fortium, 

O filia Toscaris, cujus venustissima est forma. 

Cadunt illi ut flores deorsum 

In conspectu solis validi lucis, 

Quando jacet ros super ejus comas, 

Ejus gravi capite existente sub nimbo noctis. 



APPENDIX. 



No. III. 

Fingal's address to his grandson, Oscar, introductory to the 
original episode of Fainasolis, from Mr. Macpherson's papers, 
published by the Highland Society, v. iii. p. 4S6 :-— 

Mhic mo mhic; 'se thuairt an Righ, 

Oscair, a Righ nan og flath ! 

Chunnaic mi dearsa do lainn 

Mar dealan bhearm san stoirm. 

Thuit an namh fo <F laimh san iomairt 

Mar dhuilleach fo osaig gheamhrai. 

Lean gu din ri cliu do shinnsir, 

A 's na dibir bhi mar iad san 

'Nuair bu bheo Treunmpr nan rath, 

As Trathal athair nan treun laoch, 

Chuir iad gach cath le buaidh, 

As bhuannaich iad cliu gach teughmhuil. 

Mairi marsin an iomra san dan, 

Sbithidh luaidh orr'aig baird nan deigh. 

Oscair ! claoidhsa lamh threun a choraig; 

Ach caomhuinn an conui 'n ti 's laige. 

Bi mar bhuinn'-shruth rethoirt geamhrai, 

Cas ri namhuid trom na Feinne ; 

Ach mar aile tla an t samhrai 

Dhoibhsan ata fann nan eigin. 

San marsin bha Treunnior riamh, 

'S bha Trathal gach ial mar sin : 

Ghluais Cumhal na 'n ceumaibh corr, 

'S bhu Fhionn un conui leis an lag. 

'Nan aobhar shinean mo lamh, 

'S le failte rachain nan coinneamh, 

A's gheibheadh iad fagsa, a's caird, 

Fo sgail dhrillinich mo lainne. 

Tair cha d' rinneas air aon neadi ' 

Air laigid a neart anns an stri. 

Fuil mo namh cha d' iaras riamh 

Na 'm bu mhiann lsis triull an sith. 

Ach cuim' an cuireadh righ nam fasach 

IJaill a cruas a lamh o shean 



APPENDIX. XI. 

A' ni tha lathair glas fo aois 
Feuchaibh e nach bf haoin mi 'n sin. — 

Na iarr gu brath corag chruaidh j 
Ach na hob i nuair a thig.* 

The same speech from the poem of Fingal, Book iii. v. 426, 
published by the same: — 

Mhic mo mhic, thuairt an Ri, 

Oscair na stri na d' oige, 

Chunnam do chlaidheamh nach min ; 

Bha m' ardan mu m' shinns're mor. 

Leansa cliu na dh' aom a chaoidh ; 

Mar d' aithreacha bi-se fein, 

Mar Threunmor, ceud cheannard nan saoi, 

Mar Trathal, sar athair nan treua. 

'Nan oige bhuail iad am blar ; 

An duana nam bard tha 'n cliu. 

Bi-se mar shruth ris na sair ; 

Ri laigse nann lann cho ciuin 

Ri aiteal gaoth air raon an fheir. 

Mar sin bha Treunmor nan sgiath, 

Is Trathal ceannard nan triath ; 

Mar sin bha mo ghniomh san t-sliabh. 

Bha 'm feurnach riamh ri mo laimh, 

'8 dh' f has an lag dana fo m' chruaidh. 

Na iarrsa carraid nan sgiath ; 

'S na diult i air sliabh nan cruach. 

Literal translation of the first copy, by Alexander Stewart, A. M, : 

Son of my son; thus said the king; 

Oscar, chief of our noble youth! 

I beheld the gleaming of thy sword 

Like the lightning of the mountains in th.e storm. 

The enemy fell beneath thy hand in the battle, 

Like withered leaves by the blast of winter. 

Adhere close to the fame of thy fathers, 

And cease not to be as they have been. 

When the victorious Trenmor lived, 

And Trathal, the father of mighty heroes, 

* These two lines are added after the episode. 



3U1. APPENDIX. 

They fought all their battles with success, 

And obtained the praise of every contest. 

Thus their renown shall remaiu in song, 

And they shall be celebrated by bards to come. 

Oscar do thou subdue the strong arm of battle ; 

But always spare the feeble hand. 

Be as a rapid spring-tide stream in winter 

To resist the powerful enemies of the Feinni ; 

But be like the gentle breeze of summer 

To those that are weak and in distress. 

Such did Trenmor always live, 

And such has Trathal ever been, 

In their fair steps Comhal trod, 

And Fingal always supported the weak. 

In their cause would I stretch my hand, 

"With cheerfulness would I go to raise them, 

And they should find shelter and friendship, 

Under the blade of my glittering sword. 

No man did I ever despise, 

However weak his strength might be. 

The blood of my foe I never sought, 

If he chose to depart in peace. 

But why should the king of the desart 

Boast of the strength of his arm in former days ? 

This which remains, gray with age, 

Shews I was not weak in my youth. — 

Never search thou for hard battle ; 

But shun it not when it comes. 

Translation of the second copy, as it stands in Fingal, B. iii. : — 

Nate meo nato, fuit id quod dixit Rex, 

Oscar certaminis in tua juventute, 

Yidi tuum gladium haud mollem ; 

Fuit mea superbia circa meam propaginem magnam. 

Sectare tu gloriam eorum qui se inclinaverunt (occiderunt)j 

Sicut tui proavi sis tu ipse, 

Ut Trenmor, primus princeps heroum, 

Ut Trathal, egregius pater strenuorum. 

In sua juventute (commiserunt) purcusserunt illi prselium ; 

In carminibus bardorum est eorum laus. 

Esto tu ut flumen contra eximios j 



APPENDIX. Xlll. 

Versus debilitatem telorum aeque mitis 

Ac aura ventorum super agello herbarum. 

Talis fuit Trenmor scutorum, 

Et Trathal ductor principum j 

Talia fuere mea facta in clivo. 

Fuit inops semper juxta meam manum, 

Et factus est infirmus audax sub mea dura\-chalybe» 

Ne qusere tu conflictum scutorum ; 

Et ne recusa eum in clivo praecipitiorum. 

Mr MacphersorC s translation : — 

Son of my son, began the king, O Oscar, pride of youth ! I saw the 
shining of thy sword. I gloried in my race. Pursue the fame of our fathers ; 
be thou what they have been, when Trenmor lived, the first of men, and 
Trathal, the father of heroes! They fought the battle in their youth. They 
are the song of bards. O Oscar ! bend the strong in arm : but spare the 
feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy 
people ; but like the gale, that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. 
So Trenmor lived ; such Trathal was ; and such has Fingal been. My arm 
was the support of the injured ; the weak rested behind the lightning of my 
shield. Never search thou for battle ; nor shun it when it comes." 



FINIS. 



H. Griffith, Letter-press and Copper-plate Printer, Swansea. 



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